Times are tough in Stuart, Florida, but enterprising Junior Achievement students at Martin County High School aren’t letting the bad economy dampen their spirits.

They’ve launched a website to promote local spending. They’ve organized a pep rally for April 25 at the county fairgrounds. Heck, they even got all the kids at school to record a special video inviting the President of the United States to attend!

The kids have spunk! Problem is, their parents hate spunk:

“It’s almost like they were trying to circumvent the parents,” said Diana Blackard, whose daughter is a sophomore. “You can hear it on the video that Channel 5 has, that says ‘Everyone move in closer, move in closer,’ and ‘We’ve got to hear everyone shout ‘Yes we can, Yes we can.’ That’s a political slogan.”

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Twelve fucking hours watching C-SPAN Sunday. We’d like to revise and extend our sanity.

Kentucky, a state that rightly celebrates its proud traditions of drinking and gambling, isn’t as indulgent when it comes to teenagers enjoying themselves:

Under current law, teens caught sexting could be charged as felony sex offenders and, if convicted, would have to be registered on the state database.

This is manifestly absurd, which is why state Rep. Martha Jane King is working hard to strike the law from the books.

And replace it with another law:

According to HB 143, a teen charged with sexting would be punished in the juvenile justice system, where a judge could issue a $100 fine for first-time offenders, order community service and work with the child’s parents.

We know, we know — charging teenagers with a misdemeanor for iPorning themselves sends a dangerous message to Kentucky’s impressionable youth.

That’s why you would only catch a break with the first nekkid picture. The second one’s still a felony.

Kentucky tries to craft fitting punishment for ‘sexting’ [McClatchy]

We need to step through this very slowly, because we think the world shifted when we weren’t looking:

More than 100 drivers in Austin, Texas found their cars disabled or the horns honking out of control…

Okay, that part we understand. Living in California, you get used to car concertos after earthquakes.

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The Mercenaries Formerly Known as Blackwater would like to correct the record for faithful readers of the Washington Independent:

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Just another day in the Eternal City…

An underground Second World War unexploded bomb was extracted and defused on Sunday after the evacuation of 4,000 people on the outskirts of Rome.

The bomb, of U.S. production and weighing 250 kilograms, was found near the Tiburtina train station during the excavations for the construction of the European high-speed railway set to connect Italy to the rest of Europe.

So here’s what caught our attention: Long-forgotten generations-old dangerous waste is still causing serious problems. Yet the waste we’ve produced since then — with plans to produce even more — isn’t measured in half-centuries, but half-lives.

WWII underground bomb defused in Rome, 4,000 people evacuated [Xinhua, via Miss Expatria]

From the people who brought you the instaclassic Demon Sheep, now comes — well, we’re not sure what. But we suggest that California Republican primary voters stay away from the brown acid.