IMMUNIZATIONS HELPFUL AGAINST TALLADEGA TETANUS: You can pick up a lot of things at a NASCAR event - cold beers, flying car parts, contagious diseases:

DEADSPIN puts on a mask, as they report members of Congress taking shots before taking in the weekend races. Not shots of Jack Daniels or Wild Turkey, mind you, but of vaccines against hepatitis, tetanus and influenza.

The House Homeland Security Committee was planning to heading out to Concord, NC, and Talladega, AL, to catch the Bank of America 500 and UAW-Ford 500. However, staff organizing the trips warned the committee they could be catching a lot more than a nice tan.

The plan was part of a “fact-finding mission” to gauge “public health preparedeness at mass gatherings.”

Great. Senator So-and-So goes off to get drunk and yell obscenities at Jeff Gordon - all with our tax dollars!

The CHARLOTTE OBSERVER notes some people are just sick over the shot-taking news. Rep. Robin Hayes of Concord was personally offended by the precautions: “I feel compelled to ask why the heck the committee feels that immunizations are needed to travel to my hometown.”

(Insert your own Southern redneck/hillbilly disease-ridden incest-practicing joke here.)