When I worked at a state crime lab, we had inmates cutting the grass. It was a large area and they used riding mowers. We were told we had nothing to worry about from them - they were near the ends of their sentences and had demonstrated good behavior so they got riding lawn mower duty, which is more fun than a laundry or kitchen job. They wouldn’t do anything nefarious that would extend their sentences or bump them back to a crappier assignment.
That is interesting, agreed. It never occurred to me that jail doesn’t have a yard, though if pressed I would have known that. Just never put it together how much more of a bummer that is.
Saw this in the San Antonio Express-News today –
Maybe this is a gift link --who knows?
Ken Paxton walks back IVF stance, saying he’s open to restrictions that could limit access
By Casey Murray, Austin BureauJuly 2, 2026
Attorney General Ken Paxton is walking back his full-throated support for in vitro fertilization, saying he backs restrictions that could limit access to the treatment for many people who are trying to have children.
Paxton told the Washington Examiner over the weekend that “we need to have restrictions, so that we don’t lose fertilized eggs, if that’s possible.”
The stance puts him closer in line with anti-abortion advocates and the state GOP, which recently adopted anti-IVF language into its platform, calling for lawmakers to address “destructive practices, such as IVF.” The treatment has become a hot-button issue because it sometimes results in discarded embryos.
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My bold.
First of all, Washington Examiner. 'Nuff said.
Next, Ken is trying to suck up to play all sides of the issue. Typical.
Third, and what really caught my eye: is he saying that fertilized eggs are the property of the State? “SO WE DON’T LOSE…” Who the fuck is WE?
That phrase “limit access to the treatment” perfectly summarizes the inherent cruelty that is the life force of Republicans.
Consistent with the RW Xian abortion stance he’s saying fertilized eggs are full-up human beings. And so entitled to the same protections as you or I am. So nobody dan no thing has the right to kill them or endanger them. The state must intervene to prevent that. Just as they try to intervene to keep you from being robbed or assaulted.
It’s just one toke under the line from Monty Python’s “Ev’ry sperm is sacred; ev’ry sperm divine”.
Never happen. That would interfere with men’s reproductive organs.
Yes, it’s only okay when it takes away women’s rights.
As long as they’re fertilized eggs. If and when they’re gestated and born, they’re on their own. Or a drain on society, if they don’t have rich parents (natural or adoptive).
Oh, yeah. The RW Xian crowd cares far more about the 9 months inside Mom than the 70-ish years after they emerge.
Which is the tell that makes it obvious they don’t give two shits about the kid pre- or post-birth. Or even 70 years later in retirement.
But boy howdy, are they fired up about managing Mom’s sex and reproduction behaviors. With zero input from her.
Bastards.
There’s some bitches too, for reasons I don’t understand
Or more precisely, when it controls women’s reproductive organs.
Yeah, they don’t like women’s rights but controlling their ability to procreate is crucial to the right.
Holy. Freaking. Crap.
Dallas Fort Worth International Airport canceled plans to install a facility commonly used for Islamic prayer after Gov. Greg Abbott on Friday threatened to withdraw state and federal funding.
Abbott sent a letter to the North Texas airport’s CEO Christopher McLaughlin, as well as the mayors of Houston, Dallas and Fort Worth, stating his office was in the process of reviewing all grant funds over facilities in their cities’ airports. He also sent a letter to U.S. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy to refer the airports for federal investigations.
“These ablution facilities appear designed to single out one subset of the population for special treatment based on religion. That is illegal,” Abbott said in a news release announcing the grant reviews. “Both airports are government-owned facilities. The federal and state constitutions prohibit government from facilitating this sort of discrimination. Just as the government cannot favor the secular over the sacred, it also cannot favor one religious view over all others.”
At the center of the investigation and grant reviews are ablution facilities, used by Muslim people for wudu, in which hands and feet are rinsed prior to prayer. Abbott said the facilities “appear designed to single out one subset of the population for special treatment based on religion” in his letter to the mayors and said funding would be revoked if their use continued.
Houston’s airport has had an ablution room since 2024, described as for use by people of all faiths. DFW told KERA that it has had a station since 2019.
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Anti-Islamic rhetoric has been at the forefront of Texas Republican messaging through the year, as GOP leaders have railed for months about the urgency of ending the so-called “Islamification” of Texas
…
I can sort of see the reasoning behind this…except when the context indicates that this is part of the statewide and nationwide movement to make life harder for non-white, non-Christian residents of the USA and make it clear they’re not welcome.
So every facility that makes space for a chapel will have to remove them, right? That’s every hospital, at least.
Every one that gets any gummint funding, which is…all of them.
The Texas Republicant platform.
"The Republicans are the party that says government doesn’t work and then they get elected and prove it.”
― P.J. O’Rourke
But those chapels are non-denominational they aren’t directed at one particular religion. That is why they just have generic representations of religion, like stained glass windows, crosses and bibles.
Christian isn’t a denomination, the same way that vanilla isn’t a flavor, white isn’t an ethnicity and mid-Westerners don’t have an accent.
That’s not accurate. Christianity is a religion, not a denomination, which means a particular subgroup within a religion. Much as Islam is a religion which includes Sunni and Shiite denominations.
It’s also true that white isn’t an ethnicity (it’s a race) but vanilla is a flavor, and Midwesterners have an accent (and it varies in different parts of the Midwest)
I believe I caught a giant whooshing sound overhead just now
So the point is to equate some accurate and inaccurate statements with each other? I guess I really did get whooshed because that makes zero sense to me.