Mean Liberals Won't Let Gov. Brownback Save Kansas With Magic Tax Cuts, Unfair!

• Sure, Gov. Sam Brownback has made a mess of Kansas. But that's not why he's about to be fired by the voters. It's because of the evil liberals, and the evil media (which is also liberal and and also evil), refusing to let his Grand Master Plan work, which it totallywould ... eventually:

  I think they (the mainstream media) want what’s happening in this state to fail that they’re shopping for a factual setting to back that up because it’s working.

  I think the left is just so desperate. They want this model to fail so bad that they can’t wait for it to and they just want to get me electorally before we get on through this and prove that this is working.

  The plan, which is totally working except that it's not but it totallywillif given enough time, is to give a bunch of tax cuts to the rich, shame any moderate Republicans who dare to object, and then kick back and let Kansas become a conservative utopia of abortion-free tax-free liberty. That's always the Republican plan, and it's always going to work ... one day. If only dumb liberals and their dumb media would stop pointing out how much it's not working because cutting all the taxes mean there is no money for stuff and things that voters like. But just give it enough time! Give Brownback another term! Magic tax cuts are real! And if that fails, well, the state can always sell some more sex toys. 

• Not gonna lie. We straight up asked our pal Rick at Happy Nice Time People to watch and report on this Very Special S&M episode ofHoly Bejesus, Duggars, How Many Kids Do You Need?!?so we didn't have to. Because when we heard that Ma and Pa Duggar teach some of their daughters (the girl ones? we don't keep track of their names, there are too many of them) how to be good little wives for their future husbands -- WITH HANDCUFFS -- we had to know if it's true. It's true:

  [S]second eldest son John-David apparently works at the local police department and helped Daddy Duggar arrange a little life lesson for the young couples. The cop handcuffs Daddy’s little girls to their respective suitors so they can learn what it takes to be good little wives… oh, yeah, I like where this is going…

  So what’s it take to be a good wife? Making sandwiches, of course! No joke. It’s an internet meme come to life. The two couple have to make sandwiches while handcuffed together as a lesson in cooperation and communication. You’ve got to work together even when it’s uncomfortable, Daddy explains, because IT’S A METAPHOR, GET IT?!

  Jessa and Ben have no problem making lunch because they’re separated by an extra set of handcuffs so their non-engaged hands don’t accidently meet. Lesson: life’s easier for single people.

  Another lesson: police officers are happy to waste time and misappropriate police equipment for local celebrities. Your tax dollars at work.

  We cut away from bondage time for a quick trip to Washington, DC, to visit with eldest son Josh. He’s about to run a 5K. He’s running a 5K. He ran a 5K. That’s it.

  Back to the S&M picnic. Now it’s time for our handcuffed couples to scale each piece of equipment on the playground in turn as sort of a makeshift obstacle course. “The lesson to be learned in this is in life there are ups and downs,” says Momma Duggar.

  There is more. But we don't want to spoil all the fun for you. We'll just say “Next, it's Bible Time,” and you can read the rest for yourselves.

• You don't actually need to have your Ebola Emergency Kit ready to go in case the terrorists have it Amazon droned to your doorstep, but if it makes you feel safer, these companies are willing and able to take your money:

  LifeSecure, a Chicago-based emergency preparedness company, has sold more than 100 "Extended Infection Protection" emergency supply kits since officials confirmed the first case of Ebola in the U.S. last week, according to owner David Scott. [...]

  Survivalists or "doomsday preppers" are also selling advice. For $2.99, Kindle owners can own "Ebola: Natural Remedies + Government Conspiracies," an e-book published Sept. 4 that accuses the U.S. and the CDC of knowingly allowing the deadly virus to come to America. [...]

  Consumers can also purchase plush toys shaped like the microscopic image of the virus. Items like these have been available for years, Adweek notes, but their sales have increased in recent months.

  Ebola plush toys. Yeah. You can go ahead and weep for humanity now.

•  This is always fun:  

  Since 1986,Washingtonianhas sought the help of congressional aides in understanding their bosses. Every two years, before lawmakers and their staffs head off for August recess to start the election season in earnest, we send an extensive survey asking for the best and worst performers in a host of categories designed to get past the headlines and TV-news zingers to capture the true culture of Capitol Hill.

  There are some entertaining categories -- workhorse, showhorse, rising star -- but some very special members of Congress win multiple awards. Such as:

  Ted Cruz’s record earned him a variety of dubious distinctions in our survey, including showhorse, clueless, and most disappointing—and that was just from Republicans. Don’t expect the feedback to rein Cruz in. Insiders point out that his carefully choreographed chaos is aimed at keeping him high on conservatives’ 2016 presidential shortlist.

•  The history of "bitch":  

  Bitch is one of the most complicated insults in the English language. A bitch typically means a lewd, malicious, irritating woman (the comparison being to a dog in heat), but some women self-identify as bitches to indicate they are strong, assertive and independent. A son of a bitch is generally a despicable or otherwise hateful man, but can also mean a dear friend who has done something impressive or clever. If something is bitchin’ it is deemed to be particularly cool or in-style, but if a person is bitching they are complaining or whining. To be someone’s bitch is to be his or her servant or slave, to sit in the bitch seat is to sit in the under-sized seat in the middle of a car, to bitch slap is to strike with an open palm. Bitch might have originally meant a female dog, but now it can indicate anything from slapstick humor to scathing insult.

  There is more. So much more. An entire-paper-written-for-a-class-at-MIT more. With graphs and everything. It's pretty, well, bitchin'.

• For those of you who think the universe and all the humans in it are only as old as The Bible Says, you'll want to skip this part. For everyone who isn't that dumb, WOW:  

  A team of researchers reported in the journal Nature on Wednesday that paintings of hands and animals in seven limestone caves on the Indonesian island of Sulawesi may be as old as the earliest European cave art.

  The oldest cave painting known until now is a 40,800-year-old red disk from El Castillo, in northern Spain.

  Other archaeologists of human origins said the new findings were spectacular and, in at least one sense, unexpected. Sulawesi’s cave art, first described in the 1950s, had previously been dismissed as no more than 10,000 years old. [...]

  The researchers said the earliest images, with a minimum age of 39,900 years, are the oldest known stenciled outlines of human hands in the world. Blowing or spraying pigment around a hand pressed against rock surfaces would become a common practice among cave artists down through the ages — and even some of the youngest schoolchildren to this day.

  A painting of an animal known as a pig deer, of the species babirusa, was determined to be at least 35,400 years old. The team concluded that it was “among the earliest dated figurative depiction worldwide, if not the earliest one.”

•  Mind. Blown. 

  Orca whales can learn how to speak dolphin, according to a new study. This shows the marine animals, also known as killer whales, are one of the few that has ever been known to emulate other species.