I am so completely uninspired this morning, I don’t see how I can possible get out there and function. It was a pretty good weekend, as weekends go. On Saturday, I cut lots of grass. First at home, where I’m really getting the hang of dealing with the extension cord on the electric lawnmower, and then at my sister’s place, where I finally got to play with my new tractor. I cut lots of grass out there, and played around digging with the bucket a little bit, too. That was fun, even if I did have an audience (I don’t like having people watch me). I must say, that little sucker handles amazingly well. I can’t wait to close and get it out to the new place (though there’s not a whole lot of grass cutting weather left this year, it’ll be snow season before you know it.
In other news, Newt Gingich has taken a brave stance against Sharia Law, insisting that federal legislation be enacted to prevent its use here in the good old US of A. You’ll have to forgive Newt’s ignorance (if you want). He and his ilk who always seem to want to impose Christian Law and the ten commandments and whatnot upon the rest of us are apparently unaware of a little known clause in an obscure government document called the US Constitution – more specifically the First Amendment (which, on your hit-parande of amendments, comes in at #1), which starts out something like
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion….
So, kinda sorta case closed there, you’d think.
Now, were these wingnuts and teabaggers not so incredibly irony-challenged, at this point they’d realize why people shouldn’t be prevented from building a church, mosque, synagogue, or community center on privately owned property, and also why religious dogma ought to stay the f*ck away from public places. ‘Cuz, frankly, I think you’d could whomp up a fair amount of public (majority, even) support from throwing Fred Phelps and his coven into prison, and maybe even tossing that mosque burning “pastor” Michael Palin or Graham Chapman or whatever the hell his name is, into the stocks to be taunted and hit with water balloons.
But of course we don’t do that in this country, where you’re free to handle all the snakes you want (as long as you don’t try and get little boys to handle your snake for you; but let’s leave the Catholic out of this), thanks to the First Amendment.
Pretty crafty, those founders (for people who condoned – or even actively supported – slavery, were up for wiping out the natives, and who oppressed – or at least didn’t exactly enable women – except for John Adams, who, as an ugly little bastard probably felt privileged to be married to Laura Linney).
None of them could have held a candle to Newt, though (who strikes me as somebody who’d really enjoy having a candle held to him).
Oh well, time to go, I guess.
Newt and the rest of the lying rabble is trying to make people think that Sharia law will be imposed on everyone. That we’ll be stoning lovers and making women wear tents. The horrible thing is there are people who believe him. When they grow up they are called Republicans. When they’re little they are my students who can’t really get the meaning of a written passage (my fault of course. If only I would give them more “fill in the bubble” tests).
The blog is loading very slowly and I have gotten the “connection was reset while the page was loading” message 3 times.
Nice butterfly pictures from Lincoln:
http://www.palemale.com/
One Wisconsin Now has learned of an organized voter suppression effort between the Wisconsin GOP, Americans for Prosperity, and a number of tea party groups.
The organization obtained an audio recording, which it says it has verified as authentic, from a June 16, 2010 meeting. * The Republican Party of Wisconsin will use its “Voter Vault†state-wide voter file to compile a list of minority and student voters in targeted Wisconsin communities.
* Americans for Prosperity will use this list to send mail to these voters indicating the voter must call and confirm their registration information, and telling them if they do not call the number provided they could be removed from the voter lists.
* The Tea Party organizations will recruit and place individuals as official poll workers in selected municipalities in order to be able to make the challenges as official poll workers.
* On Election Day, these organizations will then “make use†of any postcards that are returned as undeliverable to challenge voters at the polls, utilizing law enforcement, as well as attorneys trained and provided by the RPW, to support their challenges.
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2010/9/20/903601/-A-winnable-fight:-The-DREAM-Act