no i am not interested in your man-nailed-to-tree religion

Lots of gardening, all in the form of clean-up. The strange white shrub-like thing at Murkworks South didn't make it through the winter, so I cleaned it out and now there's a big open space where a shrub used to be - but it actually looks fine that way, the big white thing had been too big for a very long time, and the roses honestly prefer the isolation. I think I'm going to put the strawberry planter on a stone in the centre where the bush used to be, and that it will be nice.

Monday's miles: 2.7
Tuesday's token: 0.1
Miles out of Hobbiton: 613.6
Miles out of Rivendell: 153.7
Miles to Lothlórien: 312.6


Mushrooms

On the way to murksouth on Monday, a Korean woman tried to talk to me a lot about Jesus and how about this woman she knew in Tacoma had written a book about how she met Jesus in person and all that. I was not interested but polite; she was persistent, but eventually said that a lot of "young people aren't interested in Jesus today" but that she worked at UW and talked about how people could come talk to her if they saw her around. Yeah, I'll keep that in mind, thanks. :-p

Oh, and courtesy spazzkat, here is everything wrong with Microsoft's design process in one handy short video.

I'm late with a CWU, but I'm working on it.

Today's Cultural Warfare Update

Canadians need to pay particular attention to one starred articles; the first battle in the American-export war against abortion rights in Canada is starting, disguised as an expenditure issue. This is how it starts. Also, Americans (and Canadians, too, no doubt) need to be very much aware that the fundamentalists have decided that the marketing term for stem-cell research bans is "banning Human Cloning." Whenever you hear this term come up, it's about stopping important research on religious grounds. Also, they've come up with a method of launching prosecutions against "indecent" programming on cable, by getting the Michigan Supreme Court to rule that "indecency" on a screen is the same as indecency in a public forum; anybody who said they wouldn't go after cable television because it'd be political suicide can shut the fuck right up now; they would, can, and are.

And now, today's news.

A rather long but reasonably worthwhile defense of academic freedom from political interference;

Mississippi house committee votes to ban all abortions except to save the life of the other; NO health exemption, so if the woman is going to go blind, too damn bad for her; similarly, no rape or incest exemptions;

The founder of Domino's Pizza is planning a "new town in Southwest Florida that will be governed by Roman Catholic principles" - birth control will be banned, and so on;

Andrew Sullivan, continuing to catch on, runs a longish piece of email from a reader who knows some of the leading theoconservatives in the Republican party personally, who talks about their goals and agenda - he's finally, really taking all this seriously and giving it more coverage than I can, which is good;

Andrew Sullivan also discovers the Family Research Council, which i've been monitoring for some time, and starts talking about how the theoconservative movement has been redefining what is and isn't religion;

Focus on the Family opposes New York State's move to allow pharmacists to prescribe emergency contraception; they call it an abortion pill again, which I must continue to stress it is most emphatically not; quotes theocons they agree with as saying it is "the taking of a life"; proxy-quotes calling for a ban on it entirely;

FotF cranky that Utah "intelligent design" bill, which is to say repackaged-creationism bill, fails;

***** Anybody who said that the theoconservatives wouldn't go after cable and satellite TV can shut the fuck up now: they've got a Michigan Supreme Court ruling saying that indecency on cable isn't any different than public exposure. It goes to the Federal courts now, but they're putting together an action plan to prosecute television content producers based on state indecent-exposure laws;

FotF plugs their "ex-gay" ministry bullshit;

Lawsuit against stem-cell-research initiative goes to court in California;

Pope Benedict proclaims that zygotes are also fully human life; this is consistent with the Catholic ban on contraception, and also with the fundamentalist theocratic attempt to redefine pregnancy further and further back in the process - all as part of the long-term goal of banning most (if not all) forms of birth control;

Family Research Council upset that Mississippi has not moved to ban "human cloning," which is to say, to ban many hugely important areas of medical research involving stem cells;

Agape Press; Roe v. Wade "collapsing";

***** American Family Association ACTION ITEM: they want one million signatures on a petition to get South Dakota governor Mike Rounds to sign their abortion ban; he's already said he probably will, so this seems rather pointless, but nothing succeeds like excess; According to the AFA, the bill declares that a zygote has an inalienable right to life; this would set a precedent to ban many forms of contraception;

Catholic Online: "Feticide goes to the Supreme Court" and "South Dakota Becomes First Free State" by banning abortion;

Bayfield High School (Colorado) student wants "Winter Break" changed to "Christmas Break" on the grounds that the US is "an essentially Christian nation" and Bayfield "is a Christian community";

Catholic News Service: marriage rights for queers is a "risk to children";

Theoconservatives hold "War on Christians" conference in DC, continue to portray themselves as being powerless victims because they don't have absolute total control over all of America and can't ban fags or demand religious obedience from everybody else;

***** Focus on the Family Canada ACTION ITEM - they're starting their long war on abortion rights in Canada; Make no mistake, this is the start of a long war;

Stanley Kurtz continues railing against queers and marriage rights in National Review Online;

***** LiveNews pushes opposition to Missouri stem-cell research initiative; they're casting it again as "human cloning"; everyone paying attention to this fight needs to know that "human cloning" is the new marketing technique to fight stem-cell research; the theoconservatives do a very good job of picking terms. The theoconservative agenda was not gaining much traction when it was "Christian values," but then they came up with "Family values" and it took off; this is the same thing;

Agape Press worries that the Republican Party isn't being hard-core enough against civil unions, demands more action; also, a brief memorial to the "founder of the modern creationist movement";

Agape Press's Mark Creech condemns pro-science/pro-evolutionary-theory religious leaders;

Washington Post article on state fights over Plan B;

"Faith and Freedom Network"'s head addresses Seattle City Club; I don't see any articles on this, unfortunately.

( Articles and excerpts )

Today's Second Cultural Warfare Update

I thought I was done today, but I'm not; there's just too much going on. Here's a second update. This one is also important, because there's a lot of more-frank-than-usual fundamentalist talk about the abortion agenda and their growing control over the courts and expectations for the near future. I also have transcribed Dobson's reading of the letter he and Focus on the Family got from Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito, which you should read too.

Fundamentalists p0wn the Courts, Part 1: Focus on the Family claims 30 states will ban abortion in complete or large part; urges activists not to count chickens before hatching, they don't know that they have the court votes for 100% sure yet;

Fundamentalists p0wn the Courts, Part 2: Justice Alito thanks Dobson for his and his listeners' support during confirmation hearings;

Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney endorses South Dakota's anti-abortion law, which does not include exemptions for the health of the other, rape, or incest - so if you get raped by your dad and carrying the child will leave you blind or paralysed from the waste down but won't kill you, that's just too fucking bad for you;

Doctors working before Roe v. Wade talk about life for women pre-abortion rights; read this;

Or, hell, just read this: Virginia woman shoots herself(!) to induce an abortion; charged with illegally attempting to induce an abortion in Virginia; murder charges considered but set aside because of limits still in place until Roe v. Wade is overturned; she's in jail, faces up to 10 years in prison; THIS IS THE FUTURE, SO WAKE THE FUCK UP, PEOPLE;

Wisconsin to have anti-marriage-rights initiative on the ballot in 2006;

Focus on the Family condemns temporary lifting of ban on travel for HIV+ people for the Gay Games in Chicago, talks about how diseased fags pose a national health risk, demands ban be reinstated;

Missouri court upholds 24-hour "waiting period" for abortion;

Kentucky considering 24-hour "waiting period" and in-person "counseling" before abortion;

***** Concerned Women for America ACTION ITEM: CWA's Robert Stuber writes condemning the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) treaty, starts effort to reject any attempt at passage by US Senate;

***** Focus on the Family's main broadcast is an "issues update": it's a long sequence of updates on political issues. Significantly, it includes the letter of thanks and support from Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito. It also includes a lot of rah-rah for South Dakota's near-absolutist abortion ban, support for their "ex-gay" bullshit conferences, and an update on installations of ultrasound in their anti-abortion evangelistic "pregnancy centres" that lure women in pretending to be health clinics. One particularly interesting quote is when Dobson starts rhapsodizing about "little human beings growing and learning to serve the Lord!" but there's all sorts of fun in this one.

( Transcriptions, excerpts, and articles )