lunchtime short takes

[cellio]

The evil melding-of-church-and-state bill passed the House. Bah. Yes, it doesn't really mean anything on its face; it's just a resolution for the president to say some words to endorse religion, and he does that on his own all the time anyway. But it's still offensive coming from Congress. I don't want to live in a theocracy, even if I got to choose the theology.

I got an auto-response from my representative yesterday saying, basically, thanks for the email and expect a paper letter in several weeks. He voted for it, so I'll probably get some patronizing piece of drivel about how in these tough times we all need to unite and do God's will or some such. Sadly, an elected Democrat from Pittsburgh need not fear reprisal at the polls. (How did your rep vote?)

Speaking of government, I should really get around to ordering a copy of my birth certificate. Maybe even getting a passport, just so I'll have it. I can probably make off with my parents' copy of the former to help with the Pesach trip to Canada in a few weeks. I've never had my ID challenged at the border, but times are different now and I'm travelling with a non-citizen who was born in the middle east.

Speaking of Pesach (sort of), frozen gefilte fish is much better than the stuff that comes in jars. I'm never going back.

Speaking of religion (ok, the transitions are getting weak): For those who were interested in the "conversion reruns" journal, see shira_reruns. It'll get off to a slow start (I didn't write as much at the beginning), with the pace picking up in June.

Apropos of nothing (hey, I can tell when transitions are a lost cause), I had a very pleasnt lunch with a friend and past co-worker yesterday. It's way too easy to lose track of people when you no longer see them on a daily basis. He also found this journal, which intrigues me because it's not googlable. Not that I mind, of course; I was just surprised.

I've advanced another hole on my belt, and many of my pants now require a belt. Woo hoo. But Pesach is going to be bad for this, isn't it? I guess I should work on keeping matzah consumption down; being dense, it's probably even worse than pita for calorie/benefit tradeoffs.

Comments

[cellio]

Pittsburgh is very heavily Democrat; the spring primary is usually referred to as "the election", at least for local offices. I can't remember if the Republicans even bothered to run anyone against our current House rep.

A friend once consed up a Risk variant around the Pittsburgh map (it was for a party on election night). The game also involved factions -- the Squirrel Hill Democrats, the South Side Democrats, the (something else) Democrats, the Repulicans, and the Libertarians. The latter two were handicapped in various ways; they weren't really playable positions. :-)

I'm also a libertarian, by the way, and also feel that the two dominant parties are pretty much interchangable in most things. I really wish election laws/policies weren't so heavily rigged in favor of just two parties.

[rectangularcat]

One of the reasons I love Canada is that we now have 5, that is 5 ,major parties since the early 90's, Granted not all of them are represented in each riding -like the Quebec separatist party - the Bloc Quebecois or the Canadian Alliance (whose official abbreviation used to be CRAP - Canadian Reform Alliance Party) which was born out of an anti-Quebec/anti-immigration stance- but it's cool nonetheless.

Living in the US for so long, I haven't been able to vote in a major election in forever. I wasn't a US citizen and I was also a non-resident of Canada. That didn't keep the Tacoma Court district to make me try to do jury duty... hehe. I had to prove I wasn't a citizen - too bad, I think that I would have enjoyed it.

I was pro-Nader in your last election. I had the buttons and paraphernalia and everything. It was quite fun to get discussions going around my work which was heavily Republican (lots of ex-military types) - they were all for Nader since in their view that wasn't helping Gore. Too bad that I could not vote!!! Just love stirring the pot sometimes. Although in retrospect, I think that I would have researched my choice further had I been really able to vote.