Tea Party Vows to Police Voter Fraud

Wow, scary thought. Here's the article.

Pretty much they're welcoming McCarthyist tactics to the polling booths. These people are encouraging individuals to "turn in" those who vote illegally--whatever that means. Probably the most common will be for illegal aliens getting paid to vote. So, they're going to pull over every Hispanic they can, because these people don't have the specialized training to be able to accurately tell an illegal from a legal. Tea Party authorized racism in action--and they wonder why so many people disagree with their practices.

I'm sorry, but I believe in a free country. Which means that individuals are free, in my book, to sell their votes. Why? For a few reasons:
1: Secret Ballot. Imagine how much money you can make off people buying your vote (dozens of people if you wish) and then you step into that booth you can choose for yourself--you can lie all you want about who you voted for and no one but you will ever know.
2: Of those who do vote, most sell their votes without even realizing it. They vote for the name they know better and that's the person who's better able to get their message across--which normally means that they've spent the most money on TV ads. Ever notice that positive relationship between amount of money a candidate spends and their chance at winning. Only when they've done something really stupid do they lose, normally.

Don't go after the people voting--that's impossible at best for the average American to do effectively. But anyone, including myself can be vigilant about REAL voter fraud. Cases where your vote isn't secret--times where there is tangible negligence of the voting processes.

If you want to stop those not eligible to vote then you need to get the police manpower into the field to stop identity theft--easiest way to get legal information into the hands of those who misuse it. It's not just about stealing the retirement savings of little old ladies, but gets terrorists onto planes, helps murderers escape, you name it.

I wonder how many innocent people will be terrorized by these "do gooders"? As my own personal judge of the effectiveness of this idea (in other words, how it's obviously not just blatant racism), would be if they pulled me over for being to young to vote. I really don't look like my 22 years.

Goblin Market by Christina Rossetti (1830-1894)

I've always liked this poem and I've never really liked poems.

Morning and evening
Maids heard the goblins cry:
"Come buy our orchard fruits,
Come buy, come buy:
Apples and quinces,
Lemons and oranges,
Plump unpecked cherries-
Melons and raspberries,
Bloom-down-cheeked peaches,
Swart-headed mulberries,
Wild free-born cranberries,
Crab-apples, dewberries,
Pine-apples, blackberries,
Apricots, strawberries--
All ripe together
In summer weather--
Morns that pass by,
Fair eves that fly;
Come buy, come buy;
Our grapes fresh from the vine,
Pomegranates full and fine,
Dates and sharp bullaces,
Rare pears and greengages,
Damsons and bilberries,
Taste them and try:
Currants and gooseberries,
Bright-fire-like barberries,
Figs to fill your mouth,
Citrons from the South,
Sweet to tongue and sound to eye,
Come buy, come buy."

Quote

"The art of diplomacy is the luck of knowing more of your rival's secrets than he knows of yours. Always deal from a position of power. These were Shrewd's maxims. And Verity abided by them."
--From Assassin's Apprentice by Robin Hobb

Amusements

Picked these up from a forwarded email.

1. Ever wonder about those people who spend $4.00 apiece on those little bottles of Evian water?
Try spelling Evian backwards :NAIVE

2. Isn't making a smoking section in a restaurant like making a peeing section in a swimming pool? (My sentiments exactly!)

15. I was thinking about how people seem to read the Bible a whole lot more as they get older; then it dawned on me ... they're cramming for their final exam.

17. Why do they put pictures of criminals up in the Post Office? What are we supposed to do, write to them?
Why don't they just put their pictures on the postage stamps so the mailmen can look for them while they deliver the mail?
----actually, I think this would be a smart way to get more people's attention about wanted posters. Speaking of stamps, I love the idea of forever stamps, but why can't they make them something other than the liberty bell? I guess it's to keep people like me from buying them, though I do have a nice selection for when the prices do increase.

21. Ever wonder what the speed of lightning would be if it didn't zigzag?

***Edit: 3/30/2011: They have made all new stamps forever stamps!!!! Brilliant!

From "Assassin's Apprentice" by Robin Hobb

"Tell this to King Shrewd. Our population grows, but there is a limit to our arable soil. Wild game will only feed so many. Comes a time when a country must open itself to trade, especially so rocky and mountainous a country as mine. You have heard, perhaps, that the Jhaampe way is that the ruler is the servant of his people? Well, I serve them in this wise. I marry my beloved younger sister away, in the hopes of winning grain and trade routes and lowland goods for my people, and grazing rights in the cold part of the year when our pastures are under snow. For this, too, I am willing to give you timbers, the great straight timbers that Verity will need to build his warships. Our mountains grow white oak such as you have never seen. This is a thing my father would refuse. He has the old feelings about the cutting of live trees, And like Regal, he sees your coast as a liability, your ocean as a great barrier. But I see it as your father did--a wide road that leads in all directions, and your coast as our access to it. And I see no offense in using trees uprooted by the annual floods and windstorms."

excellent quote, I think.

Wondering Aloud.

It's 1982 and Ellen Goodman from the Washington Post Writers Group was tasked with writing a review to put on the back of my book Women's Diaries of the Westward Journey by Lillian Schlissel. She wrote, "In this new season of migration, when the economy acts like a centrifuge, it is equally challenging to keep a family together..."

As I wasn't alive in 1982, I can't really say what the economy was like. Nor can I say much about the "new season of migration". But I can say something about a centrifuge. I've used one probably 2 dozen times during the 7 weeks of bio-lab I've had so far and will probably use it more in the coming weeks. A centrifuge literally spins around in circles causing everything inside your tube to get squished into the tip, creating a little pellet. I'm not sure how this can describe an economy. Unless, of course, she means that all the wealth got spun around in circles until it all ended up in the hands of a very few people (making up that pellet). Ah well. If you could provide some insight, that would be much appreciated.

On a similar, but probably not related note, there was a funny moment in my lecture course today. The professor that was speaking had a total brain fart when describing initial thoughts about coral reefs. Apparently early scientists of the species thought that the corals were..."umm....what's the name for, uhh, vegetarians?" "Herbivores" (said someone from the audience).  "Thank-you" (from the professor). It was a great lecture. He told us about 2 research projects he worked on measuring the affects of stresses on coral reefs (increased amount of nutrients, increased water temperatures, increased sediment runoff, etc). One was in Israel where they worked out of a military tent while the military vessels sailed past checking on their work. The other was off the coast of Key Largo, FL where they lived 80m under the ocean surface for 10 days with a broken toilet where they had to venture out of the habitat to a separate bubble and "release more nutrients into the ocean column" and then told us of the certain fish that liked to hang around and bit the legs of those using the bathroom. Good times. Oh, and they couldn't have an open flame because they were under pressure, so they had to eat freeze dried astronaut meals for those 10 days.

Test Your Savvy on Religion

see orignial: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/10/opinion/10kristof.html?src=me&ref=general
Time for a pop quiz.

Damon Winter/The New York Times

Nicholas D. Kristof

On the Ground

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The New York Times reported recently on a Pew Research Center poll in which religious people turned out to be remarkably uninformed about religion. Almost half of Catholics didn’t understand Communion. Most Protestants didn’t know that Martin Luther started the Reformation. Almost half of Jews didn’t realize Maimonides was Jewish. And atheists were among the best informed about religion.
So let me give everybody another chance. And given the uproar about Islam, I’ll focus on extremism and fundamentalism — and, as you’ll see, there’s a larger point to this quiz. Note that some questions have more than one correct choice; answers are at the end.

 1. Which holy book stipulates that a girl who does not bleed on her wedding night should be stoned to death?
a. Koran
b. Old Testament
c. (Hindu) Upanishads

2. Which holy text declares: “Let there be no compulsion in religion”?
a. Koran
b. Gospel of Matthew
c. Letter of Paul to the Romans

3. The terrorists who pioneered the suicide vest in modern times, and the use of women in terror attacks, were affiliated with which major religion?
a. Islam
b. Christianity
c. Hinduism

4. "Every child is touched by the devil as soon as he is born and this contact makes him cry. Excepted are Mary and her Son.” This verse is from:
a. Letters of Paul to the Corinthians
b. The Book of Revelation
c. An Islamic hadith, or religious tale

5. Which holy text is sympathetic to slavery?
a. Old Testament
b. New Testament
c. Koran

6. In the New Testament, Jesus’ views of homosexuality are:
a. strongly condemnatory
b. forgiving
c. never mentioned

7. Which holy text urges responding to evil with kindness, saying: “repel the evil deed with one which is better.”
a. Gospel of Luke
b. Book of Isaiah
c. Koran

8. Which religious figure preaches tolerance by suggesting that God looks after all peoples and leads them all to their promised lands?
a. Muhammad
b. Amos
c. Jesus

9. Which of these religious leaders was a polygamist?
a. Jacob
b. King David
c. Muhammad

10. What characterizes Muhammad’s behavior toward the Jews of his time?
a. He killed them.
b. He married one.
c. He praised them as a chosen people.

11. Which holy scripture urges that the "little ones" of the enemy be dashed against the stones?
a. Book of Psalms
b. Koran
c. Leviticus

12. Which holy scripture suggests beating wives who misbehave?
a. Koran
b. Letters of Paul to the Corinthians
c. Book of Judges

13. Which religious leader is quoted as commanding women to be silent during services?
a. The first Dalai Lama
b. St. Paul
c. Muhammad

Answers:
1. b. Deuteronomy 22:21.
2. a. Koran, 2:256. But other sections of the Koran do describe coercion.
3. c. Most early suicide bombings were by Tamil Hindus (some secular) in Sri Lanka and India.
4. c. Hadith. Islam teaches that Jesus was a prophet to be revered.
5. All of the above.
6. c. Other parts of the New and Old Testaments object to homosexuality, but there’s no indication of Jesus’ views.
7. c. Koran, 41:34. Jesus says much the same thing in different words.
8. b. Amos 9:7
9. all of them
10. all of these. Muhammad’s Jewish wife was seized in battle, which undermines the spirit of the gesture. By some accounts he had a second Jewish wife as well.
11. a. Psalm 137
12. a. Koran 4:34
13. b. St. Paul, both in 1 Corinthians 14 and 1 Timothy 2, but many scholars believe that neither section was actually written by Paul.

And yes, the point of this little quiz is that religion is more complicated than it sometimes seems, and that we should be wary of rushing to inflammatory conclusions about any faith, especially based on cherry-picking texts. The most crucial element is perhaps not what is in our scriptures, but what is in our hearts.

I invite you to comment on this column on my blog, On the Ground. Please also join me on Facebook, watch my YouTube videos and follow me on Twitter.

Fox News on Hulu

I can't help but feel like I was in some way responsible for this addition to the TV site since I sent about 40 emails to various Fox personalities asking why they were so against sharing their video with folks like me who don't care to pay for access to the channel. But I'm concerned as to why they are the only videos which are so proud to include the intro and conclusion telling us that these videos are exclusive for Hulu. Are they censoring something? Or just embarrassed to share with the free world (taken literally) what they tell the paying world? Sigh, I guess it's back to the emailing for me. I really would love to get my hands on some "Fox and Friends" because honestly, they HAVE to do better than what is used as soundbites on youtube and certain comedy central shows.