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November 7, 2010

16-Year-Old Wants 28-Year-Old Woman

” title=”www.send-email.org”>www.send-email.org to merissag[at]gmail[dot]com.

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Is Arizona’s religious school funding constitutional?

It’s an old debate: Are tax credits for religious schools constitutional? The Obama Administration says it is and supports an Arizona state law that funds religious schools with tax credits. And this week the Supreme Court heard arguments on both sides.

The Christian Science Monitor gives us the details to read the tea leaves:

As in prior cases involving government and religion, the justices appear to be deeply split. The court’s liberals generally are highly suspicious of interactions between government and religion, while the conservatives are less suspicious. …

Justice Anthony Kennedy, a potential decisive vote in the case, said he had “some difficulty” with the idea that an individual spending money the government doesn’t take as a tax is nonetheless still government money. …

The program requires that donations be made to a School Tuition Organization (STO), which are private, non-profit groups set up to award scholarships from the donated funds. In 2009, there were 53 STOs. They received $51 million in donations.

Here’s the controversial part: Roughly half of the STOs only award scholarships to religious schools. In addition, most of the donated money flows through STOs that award scholarships at religious schools.

The key question in the case is whether Arizona’s program amounts to a government benefit program that favors religion, or whether it is a private choice program (set up by government) in which it is the private actors whose personal choices favor religion.

I still wasn’t sure what to make of it. UPenn law prof David Skeel wrote in the Wall Street Journal that he expects the high court to reverse a Ninth Circuit ruling that held the law unconstitutional. But I could see this coming out either way. As the Monitor suggested, it’s probably going to come down to what Justice Kennedy thinks.

Anyway, there is a healthy recap of the arguments at the SCOTUSblog.

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This Extra Hour Is Gonna Cost Me

Now that I finally get to stretch my day with a whole added hour, here’s a list of wonderful extras I am in for:

1. I now have another whole hour to be on my diet, and obsess about that cookie I’m depriving myself from, which means I’m more likely to cheat, which means this extra hour will probably cost me 5 lbs. gained.

2. More time means more awake hours, which means more clothing changes, which inevitably means more laundry, which is now actually costing me 2 hours folding in front of a soap opera, which will have me crying over Lexi’s inability to commit to Jake.

3. Extra facebook time, which leads to more battery use on my computer, which leads to more electricity, which will cost me more money and quite possibly make me more friend time who may inevitably get mad at me over a comment I make that is taken out of context, which I now realize I should never have said because after reading it over, it did come across mean if you were not in my own head, eventhough the fact is, I was hoping our inside joke wouldn’t lead to anything awkward, which it now has, and I realize I made a very bad mistake, which leaves me with terrible guilt, and since there is an exra hour in the day, I will have more time to discuss it with my therapist, which will inevitably cost me more friends forcing me to get a second job to help me pay for my electrical bill, peace offerings, and Dr. Pacoe.

4. More time means more time to shave in the shower, which means more chances of getting nicked, which means I’ll need to run to Rite-Aid to buy bandaids but they’ll be out of the kinds I like and I will have to go to CVS instead, which means I will be passing by the car wash, which will remind me that my car looks like a cheap blind grandpa drives it, which will persuade me to stop in to get it washed, which will force the smooth talkin Latino to urge me to get it detailed since time is no longer an issue like I tried explaining last time I came in for a six dollar hand wash, and while his mouth is moving down the list of cherry vanilla scents he will leave my car smelling like as he so valiantly adds a few more dollars to my detail treatment, like an under-carriage wash (who cares what the underneath of your car looks like- and doesn’t it cancel itself out once Jose drives my sparkling under-carriage over that puddle that has accumulated from the Bentley that is clearly flipping off my old dented man van anyway?) I will find myself smelling coffee and have more time to sip my second cup for the day while I treat my leg wound with napkins.

5. Another latte means more energy, which might lead me to rush, which may cause me to trip, which could land me off my feet for a few days and put my whole laundry to do list behind, which might just might force me to spend more time writing, which may lead me to finishing my book earlier than I expected, which might land in a random book store in inner city Cleveland that no one’s ever heard of, which may lead to my chubby cigar smoking editor insisting I take a picture for the sleeve, which is why, since people in inner city Cleveland don’t really read much- l can finally have that freakin cookie!

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