CONCORD, New Hampshire. Breaking a deadlock that had brought it to a standstill for weeks, the New Hampshire legislature today approved a law that will change the state’s motto from “Live Free or Die” to “Breakfast Served All Day”.
New Hampshire truck stop.
“‘Live Free or Die’ was too harsh for a lot of people,” said Senate President Donna Swanson. “It can be very upsetting to an Islamofascist who wants to establish a world-wide caliphate that you’d rather die than give up MTV and Bud Light beer.”
Thanksgiving turkey on the cheap.
New Hampshire has historically been the most conservative of the New England states, with no income or sales tax, a large population of hunters and a state-wide requirement that house cats obtain their owners’ consent before having unprotected sex. In recent years this tradition has been undermined by an influx of newcomers from more liberal states such as Vermont and Massachusetts, who have beseeched legislators for more public services and cappucino outlets. Democrats now control both houses of the legislature, the governor’s office and all state liquor stores.
State liquor store.
“We rejected most of the wacko mottos like ‘New Hampshire: Like Massachusetts, Only Colder!’ and ‘New Hampshire is for Macrame Lovers’,” says Republican minority leader Oliver Engstrom. “Breakfast all day is a New Hampshire tradition we can all get behind–and it shows in our behinds.”
You can’t swing a dead cat without hitting a pancake house in Virginia.
Virginia is the only other state to have abandoned a traditional defense-oriented motto for one with a breakfast theme, having changed from “Sic semper tyrannis”–Latin for “Mean tyrants suck!”–to “The Pancake State” in 1998. “We thought it was time to drop the truculent image for one that was more inviting,” says Sue Ellen Berg of the Virginia Department of Tourism. “Tyrants spend money too.”
Members of Parliament-Funkadelic, in session.
The New Hampshire legisature, officially known as the General Court, is the fourth largest legislative body in the world after the U.S. Congress, the British Parliament, and Parliament-Funkadelic, a funk music collective inducted into the Rock ‘n Roll Hall of Fame in 1997.
New Hampshire earned its new name by virtue of the option commonly offered by restaurants in the state that serve breakfast at any hour of the day. Visitors to the state are advised by translators of local dialect that the correct response to a waitress who asks “Do you want sausage, ham or bacon with that?” is “Yes.”
