From the state that gave us Tom DeLay

Increasing government spending to appease their fundamentalist base — how very Republican of the Texas House of Representatives:

The Texas House approved a budget provision late Friday requiring state colleges and universities, if they use state funds to support “a gender and sexuality center,” to spend an equal amount on a center promoting “family and traditional values.”

While many members in the chamber cracked jokes and guffawed, the amendment’s author, Rep. Wayne Christian, said the University of Texas, Texas A&M and “some other schools” have centers promoting “alternative sexual practices.”

“I’m not treading on their rights to that, to teach alternative sexual behavior,” said Christian, R-Center (right). But he said they must match it, dollar for dollar, with advocating heterosexual, “traditional values.”

Finally, someone with the guts to stand up for downtrodden Christian heterosexuals. It’s hard to take a party seriously when they have so many juveniles doing their bidding.

There’s a reason it’s called public works

Atlanta’s reputation as having some of the worst surface streets in the South was confirmed by a stinging internal audit that shows that the city has done little to monitor private utility companies and contractors who routinely rip up the streets.

Sloppy paperwork and a lack of oversight by the city department responsible for roads have been blamed for a proliferation of metal plates on Atlanta streets and costly legal claims the city has paid for damage to cars.

In a 32-page report released last week, auditors found the Department of Public Works, the division in charge of permitting and inspecting city road work, had no way of tracking the work or companies responsible for making repairs.

No surprise that Georgia Power and Atlanta Gas Light, chiefly responsible for the disrepair of our roads, have found yet another way to screw their customers. Our elected officials, meanwhile, keep finding reasons to look the other way.

‘I have to tell myself I’m a superstar every morning’

It’s the only way poor Stefani Germanotta can overcome the bullies that still haunt her. Who knew privileged Gothamites had it so rough. “It hurts how much authenticity and how much genuine blood is in my spirit.”

Spoken like a true phony.

One GOP presidential contender who won’t insult your intelligence

He’s a two-term governor who left office with a substantial budget surplus. A successful businessman who’s climbed Everest, Gary Johnson is refreshingly unconventional, supporting the decriminalization of weed, favoring a path to citizenship for illegal immigrants (the only solution, since they’ll never be deported) and ending our interventionist foreign policy.

That won’t fly with the fundamentalists and teabaggers who prefer self-aggrandizing moralists to unassuming thinkers. Hopefully Johnson can get some traction in the GOP primaries. Being the rational candidate has to count for something, even in the party of Limbaugh.

Never mind.