Rick Perry deserves another Putz of the Week award more than anybody else on the planet.

It’s almost 8:30 and I haven’t eaten dinner yet. This kind of lead-in sentence can only mean one thing: I’ve got some great crap to share with you, and for the moment I’d rather write than eat. This could change at any time, however.

Once again the Howdygram is honoring the Lone Star State’s biggest embarrassment, Governor Rick “Einstein” Perry, with our Putz of the Week award. This is Perry’s third win in case you’re keeping track.

Like a sad and desperate former rock star, Perry is currently touring America to lure jobs and businesses to Texas, touting the state’s low taxes and lack of annoying regulations and government interference. California laughed him off the airwaves; this week in Illinois he received a nasty reception from government officials. Nobody’s buying what Perry’s selling, and this is most likely because:

1. During the last national election Governor Einstein seriously suggested that Texas should secede from the union.
2. Half the adult population of Texas doesn’t have a high school diploma or GED.
3. We’re the 9th poorest state in the nation. 
4. Texas ranks 46th of the 50 states in education and just laid off 49,000 teachers.
5. State lawmakers voted to rewrite history textbooks from a religious and reactionary viewpoint.
6. Texas is tied with Mississippi for the highest percentage of workers in minimum wage, no-benefits jobs.
7. We have the highest percentage of medically uninsured residents of any state.
8. Texas holds the record for most Death Row executions, even if you’re innocent.

So why am I bringing this up? Because Perry got hugely pissed off this week by a political cartoon published in the Sacramento Bee, which appears below for your possible interest.

Lots of commenters online, as well as Rick Perry, thought the cartoon was horrible and tasteless and mocked the dead and wounded in the West, Texas, fertilizer plant explosion. They missed the point. The artist isn’t mocking the dead and wounded ... HE’S MOCKING RICK PERRY. The fertilizer plant hadn’t been inspected by the state of Texas since 2006 and was storing highly volatile ammonium nitrate at 1,370 times the legal limit. Worse yet, Texas has no statewide zoning regulations and allows individual municipalities to decide these issues on their own without intervention. This explains how come the fertilizer plant in question was adjacent to an apartment complex, a middle school and a nursing home, all of which were flattened by an explosion so enormous it left a 93-foot wide crater and registered 2.6 on the Richter scale. Rick Perry deserves another Putz of the Week award more than anybody else on the planet.

Thank you for letting me rant.

And now, because I am diabetic with quickly-plummeting blood sugar, I need to turn my attention to something really important: EATING THINGS. At the moment I’m considering a large pot of steamed California blend veggies with fake spray-on butter and a nice little bowl of chicken whatnots in sugar-free teriyaki sauce. The veggies and whatnots are both convenient frozen products Schwan’s and pictured below. The teriyaki sauce (see right) is another brilliant offering from Netrition that tastes so damn good you’d never guess it’s low-carb and will probably make those strange little whatnots practically edible.

Thank you for stopping by tonight. Tell your friends, okay?