Stuff from Around Arkansas, February 4

Taxing My Patience: Hey, I just came up with a brand new, totally untried way to resolve this whole trauma system funding thing without hanging a bulls-eye on all those poor smokers — just make everyone pay their damn taxes. (Arkansas Times)
Pennies from Heaven: Grocery tax cut bill sails through Senate committee. Hooray! (Arkansas News Bureau)
Party Animals: Gov. Mike Beebe, who has apparently developed the unfortunate habit of referring to himself in the third person without irony, believes that the Republican House leader may be engaging in “OVERT PARTISANSHIP”! Oh no! (Arkansas Democrat-Gazette)
Unpopular: House Speaker Robert “Robbie” Wills notes that voting for cigarette tax hike takes same type of political courage it took to ensure civil rights for all in the 20th century. Whew! For a minute there I was afraid he was going to employ hysterically inapt and disproportionate historical analogies to make a self-aggrandizing rhetorical point! (Robert “Robbie” Will blog)
Couldn’t help but notice over at Under the Dome this afternoon, they are running photos of the Governor signing into law SB77, the Animal Cruelty Act. Anyone else notice the three blue-hairs spaced out across the front row of the cheering section wearing the fake animal-skin coats? You just gotta love shots like that.
Say, I assumed they were fake…you don’t suppose? Nah, surely not.
Don’t be cruel, gotta give those cougars some loving…