Great news, everyone! At some point last week, Senators Sam Brownback (R-Kan.) and Mary Landrieu (D-La.) must have finished fighting all the terrorists and repaired the economy and reversed all the bad unemployment trends, because how else could you explain the two of them introducing a law that would prohibit scientists from making mermaids and centaurs and Jersey devils and whatnot? Other than to conclude: these two senators are straight-up idiots, I mean? Who can say? Anyway, having just posted on Bigfoot, stand back as I try to WIN THE AFTERNOON with cryptozoology!
Sen. Sam Brownback (R-Kan.) -- an ardent anti-abortion activist -- is worried that the Obama administration's loosening of restrictions on stem cell research will result in the creation of a new race of bio-engineered "human-animal" hybrid freaks.
Or beautiful mermaids.
The bill -- modeled on an inexplicably overlooked effort by Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal -- would ban the creation of "part-human, part-animal creatures, which are created in laboratories, and blur the line between species."
OKAY NOBODY FREAK OUT: "The legislation, Brownback said, 'is limited in scope' and wouldn't limit the use of some animal parts for human use, including porcine pig valves." OKAY? Everyone is still allowed to get freaky with some "porcine pig valves." (Aren't all "pig valves" porcine?)
Anyway, Brownback called the measure "philosophical and practical." His worries seem to have stemmed from his "background in agriculture," where folks have been working to genetically modify soybeans. Naturally, Brownback concluded that if we weren't careful, this could lead to the rise of the Minotaurs, or a similar Dr. Caligari-type moment where we'd be "setting a time-bomb that might detonate many generations down the line," which would force the CIA to have to waterboard a human genome until it confessed to the whereabouts of the were-people.
Brownback and Landrieu have twenty co-sponsors for the bill, all of whom should be paraded down Pennsylvania Avenue while citizens mock them and throw pig valves.
[Would you like to follow me on Twitter? Because why not? Also, please send tips to tv@huffingtonpost.com -- learn more about our media monitoring project here.]