Tag Archives: fireworks

Political Folly- The Season of the Lunatic is Upon Us

Looks like we’re going to be able to hunt wolves in Minnesota, legislators are in the process of passing legislation to allow wolf hunting. My favorite quote on this issue;

“This would be just one more way to continue the intrigue and enjoyment many people get out of hunting as well as a creative way to help control the coyote population.” Westrom said people have been telling him for years how much fun they had hunting wolves from aircraft in the 1960s and 1970s. “I want to bring back something that younger generations have never had the chance to experience.”

Are we going to shoot buffalo from trains too? Intrigue and enjoyment of blasting wolves from a plane, I wasn’t aware that we had that many pilot-hunters around. Whatever you thoughts on this issue are, pro or against, can we agree that is about as important as studying possum populations in urban forests in terms of things the legislators in St. Paul should be worrying about?

Speaking of priorities, our legislators also found time to pass a new law allowing Minnesotans to buy the “good” fireworks that we’d all been buying in Wisconsin anyway. Again, so glad that we had the time to pass this critical piece of legislation, it’s been too long since we were able to legally shoot fireworks into the summer sky. Thank G-d we don’t have to cross over to Wisconsin anymore. Gonna put more than one Badger state business out of business me things.

And what the hell people, since wasting the taxpayers time and money seems to be the order of the day, we couldn’t find time to legalize booze and car sales on Sunday. Where are your bloody priorities you worthless incumbent paper tigers.

Giving away our tax dollars that’s where. State is broke, the legislators are rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic and boom, along comes Roger Goodell and the NFL to hold a gun to these nimwits heads and demand $500M of our tax money for their private business. Yup we’re about to award Ziggy Wilf and the NFL half a billion dollars to build the NFL a new stadium here in Minnesota. Look, I love sports, I’ve loved the NFL in the past and I’ve been known to get whipped up for the Vikings but really? We have $550M lying around to give to one of the richest and most successful professional entertainment companies on the planet? I don’t see it. Good for the people of Los Angeles for not giving in to these clowns, hold your ground LA no one needs one of these franchises until they can pay their own way, and they can, looking at their balance sheets. For those of you from out of state, the issue was DOA this year until Roger Goodell came to town and held a gun to our heads.

Was it just me or did we have deficit to worry about just recently, oh that’s right we raided the schools to balance our budget. My mistake.

Some other gems from the most recent legislative session?

  • Marriage amendment on the November ballot, because hate is a family value.
  • Voter ID amendment. This is one of my favorites, by most accounts voter fraud in Minnesota accounts for 5 to 10 ballots a year. Thank goodness my faith in elections will be restored buy this POS legislation.
  • We’re working on legislation to enact what are called “barrier” laws to keep women from taking abortion inducing drugs. The new requirement they’re working would mandate that a Doctor be present, not just when the woman gets the prescription, but when she actually takes the pill and swallows it. This we’re told is a good thing for mothers and babies in Minnesota. Makes my head explode just thinking about that line. My wife, who BTW is very conservative on most issues and yet clearly sees this as yet another attack on women and has suggested that if they allow a RN to be present instead she’ll do house calls and not charge a nickel. Rebel.

When the Tea Party, who are about as non-partisan as James Carville, started making noise last election we were all led to believe they were all about fiscal responsibility and would not be pushing social issues and their conservative agenda. Well, surprise they’ve not done a thing about the budget, after all that’s a hard one, you can’t just cut spending and not raise taxes like they planned, that stupid thing called math got in the way. So instead they went to work on issues to rally their base, other far right zealots and here we are.

I saw an interesting video clip somewhere where a bunch of Tea Party types were out protesting the government. Cut spending, blah blah. Another clip was of the Occupy Wall Street folks, also protesting, this time big financial institutions, camera pans up and bazinga, they’re protesting in front of the same building.

I swear my head is going to explode.

BTW, there might be a way for your head not explode in Minnesota.

Independence Party of Minnesota.

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4th of July- Blake Lake Update

Ahh, the Fourth of the July, one of my favorite holidays. Our observance included the traditional round after grueling round of bocce with the middle kid while the oldest attempted to fill the lake with potatoes launched out of his trusty hairspray powered potato gun.

We kicked off the celebrations with a vist from the sewer truck. Thank G-d for Wade Sanitation. Our holding tank went off late Saturday night, should have expected it really, it seems to go off just before company arrives with some frequency. Talk about freedom and independence.. there nothing like knowing the “shitters” clear and we can wash and flush away.

We missed the boat parade this year. After spending a few hours decorating the SS Pieceacrap with all sorts of Dollar Store chatchkie we loaded up and headed out. About 300 feet down the shore the engine started to make some odd lurching sensations and then.. while she didn’t officially “die”, we lost all of gears and were dead in the water. Thankfully we were able to get a tow back to the dock and the 2010 boat parade was enjoyed from our shore. I’m not sure there wasn’t some divine providence involed.. we had some guests coming up from the Cities for the holiday and were expecting them about 5:00.. they were an hour or so early, arriving just in time to see us getting towed back to the dock.

“Running the boat in stealth mode huh?” Sorta. “Motor is sure quiet”.. Yeah. “pretty efficient on gas too” The kids were able to squirt passing boats and catch the occasional water balloon, so it wasn’t a total miss.

As is traditional on the 4th, BBQ.. in our case beef kabobs served in a pita with hummus and grilled onions topped with a spinach/tomato/cucumber salad. Just this side of awesome if you ask me.

For the second time in this weekend old Mr. Sank took a dip in the lake. And this time, there was company present. Yeah, Mrs S was appalled. The humidity this weekend was oppressive at best. You couldn’t hardly walk down to the lake with out soaking through a shirt. The 10 minutes or so I sat the somewhat chilly 70 degree water was fantastic.

Since fireworks don’t start around here until after 10:00, we time to kill. Cribbage and cocktails, the usual. Here in Wisconsin there are no laws that I know of restricting the sale of any sort of firework. Actually there are laws here, they’ve just left a loophole in them so big that average guys like me can purchase weapons grade explosives and the launch systems to use them. All the illegal fireworks are legal to be sold to residents from other states. Go figure. We can blow the place to pieces but the local can’t. Odd.

Evidence, the fellow down the lake, who I only know as Larry, based on the chants after his incredible shows, brings in a barge loaded up with launch tubes and fireworks of a size you’d expect at a municipal show. Typically we would load up the boat and head out for the show. Without the pontoon this year we were stuck watching them on shore. Which typically would have been fine, they’re all over the lake. However this year, the muggy conditions and complete lack of the slightest breeze meant that as soon as the sun started to go down, we were descended on by a hoard of biting insects that even the most liberal, hallucination inducing application of 100% deet did little to discourage.

I lasted 5 minutes.

By about 11:00 old Mr Sank was ready for bed, and up I went. Covered in welts and itching like crazy. The guests and Mrs S were still watching TV, another sign of my advanced age.. I leave my own parties to go to bead.

The price I pay for getting up at 5:00am.

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