+ 2 - 3 | § ¶How unfortunate...
Found today on cnn.com:
Christian Coalition president-elect resigns
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The president-elect of the Christian Coalition of America resigned his post Monday.
[...]
"I wanted to expand the issues from only moral ones -- such as opposing abortion and redefining marriage -- to include compassion issues such as poverty, justice, and creation care," [Rev. Joel C.] Hunter said in a statement. "We need to care as much for the vulnerable outside the womb as inside the womb."
[...]
"After initial willingness to consider these changes, the board of the CCA decided, 'that is fine, but that is not who we are,' " Hunter said.
It's a real shame that one of the most powerful Christian political groups in the U.S. is not interested in taking on issues like caring for the poor.
davidh
+ 3 - 2 | § ¶Thanksgiving and Birthday
About four out of every seven years, I have my birthday off work. This is the one of those years, and even better, it's one of the about one in seven that is also Thanksgiving. I was born thirty years ago today.Tuesday night, I went over to Lyz and Landon's place, where I joined them, four other Psi Phi members, Lyz's parents, and two others whom I don't know too well yet. Lyz made a Thanksgiving dinner for us, with turkey, mashed potatoes, two types of gravy (which I passed on, not being the gravy type), green beans, rolls, pie, and a few other things. She did a great job, and I had a fun time sitting around joking with folks during and after dinner as well. Among other things, we discussed Dippin' Dots, "the food of the future", and how maybe in "the future", all food will be made of tiny dots. This led to many humorous moments at other points in the conversation as "tiny dots" became a recurring theme. :-)
Today, I'm going over to Bloomington-Normal, where I will join my mom and dad, my brother Dan, and a friend of my mom (whose name I can't recall offhand) for Thanksgiving lunch. Dad's cooking turkey and potatoes, and I'm supposed to bring a pie, but I haven't purchased it yet... hopefully there are still some grocery stores open this morning. Then later in the evening, we're going to have a birthday dinner. I'm not sure what the menu is for that. In between the meals, I'm thinking maybe we can go see a movie, perhaps the new Bond film.
davidh
+ 1 - 3 | § ¶Funny spam text
Occasionally, a piece of spam will make it through Gmail's filters into my inbox. It doesn't happen often, but it does happen. Usually, the messages that make it through have some text that is, I assume, yoinked from various sources on the web and jumbled together with varying degrees of randomness (sometimes taking complete sentences, sometimes mixing several together). These often almost read like real English text, but can sometimes make for some funny sentences. Examples:* "No cost package been am prepared by editors?" (I'm guessing this one am not been prepared by editors, which is why there is no cost.)
* "It was just a gesture of support for President Bush's reelection, but the ketchup was a real surprise that was enjoyed by everybody in my family."
* "Burn custom cds with ease Easy." (It's good to know that it's an easy ease.)
* "He had out smarted us as we had failed to include face painting in the candy formula." (I know I love face painting as an ingredient in my candy.)
* "Demons limited to matrix. Snow came with ceremony and interspersed with a High Priest." (Demons, in the Matrix?!)
* "If you don't have access to one, the road should be level, straight, unobstructed and, obviously." (Obviously.)
* "Remember that 1 mile=1.6 kilometers, how to get back to kansas." (Are the roads in Oz measured in metric?)
* "I also like 'em with duck, gingerbread, and even pancakes." (This one was in a list of sentences that seemed to be from a cooking site. I do wonder what goes well with duck, gingerbread, and pancakes, though.)
* "save spoken out loud volume feature!" (Now every morning, you can remember how loud you were before you went to bed!)
davidh
+ 2 - 2 | § ¶I voted!
I went out and voted today. You should do the same, if you're registered.My totals: Ten votes for Republican candidates (including one running unopposed), two votes for Democratic candidates (one unopposed), and one vote for a Green candidate.
Did I throw my vote away with the last one? No, because I do not actually want the Green candidate to win, and I find it very doubtful that he will. If Judy Baar Topinka (R) loses to Rod Blagojevich (D)--it seems probable that this will happen--by less than the number of votes for Rich Whitney (G)--and this is certainly possible, as there seem to be a lot of people who don't care for either of the two major party's candidates--then maybe the Republicans will nominate someone better next time. A lot of the governorship ads have been "Rod's less corrupt than Judy"; "No, Judy's less corrupt than Rod"... and that's not exactly a strong selling point.
Last night, I went to an event at Bradley where Aaron Schock (Republican candidate for the Illinois House) and Dave Koehler (Democratic candidate for the Illinois Senate) spoke to students (and me) about various topics relating to local, state, and national politics. They brought up a few good points that I'd like to mention here.
Aaron said that he thinks a partywise split in the leadership is a healthy thing, at both the state and national levels. Illinois currently has a Democratic Governor, House, and Senate, and there has been a lot of reported corruption under that system. At the same time, the U.S. has a Republican President, House, and Senate, and there, too, have been many scandals. By having more than one party in power, you force compromise into the system, and it keeps things from getting out of control.
I got to ask two questions. The first one I asked "anonymously" through question cards that were laid out on the tables. The question was, "When one of your political beliefs is in conflict with what a majority of your constituents want to see done politically, how do you resolve the conflict? Can you give an example of where you have represented the 'will of the people', even when you personally disagreed with that particular policy?" Dave answered first, giving an example from his days on the Peoria City Council with regards to the riverboat casino. He stated that he does not gamble and does not like the idea of gambling, but he had to look past his perspective in order to do what was best for the community. Another time, he was accused by an opponent of "voting to expand a strip club". What had actually happened there was that "Big Al's" was wanting to expand to the upper level of their building, and although Dave says he's never been there, he voted to allow it, "for gender equality": the club was apparently putting "Big Alice's" upstairs.
Aaron described the goings-on in Springfield, particularly from the perspective of a member of the minority party. He said that he could have the best idea in the world, and it could be supported by all of his fellow Republicans in the House, but if he brought it to the floor of the house, it would get discarded by the Democrats in power. He also spoke about forming coalitions of members of both parties in order to get things done, and again the idea of compromise was brought up. Aaron said that he had cast (I think) around 2000 votes in his first two years in the House of Representatives, and that not all of the bills he voted for were "perfect" bills, but "if you wait for 'perfect', you'll never get any 'good'."
My other question was later, during the verbal Q&A, when I got to ask, "What do you think the role of 'third parties', such as the Libertarians or Greens, is in the political process, at a state or national level?" Aaron briefly got an odd look on his face; I wasn't sure how to read it. Anyway, Dave said that he thought having more voices to respond to made the major parties stronger. Aaron agreed, but spoke about some of the difficulties non-major parties face. "There are people who are willing to help out and spend money on my campaign simply because I am a Republican", but people in smaller parties don't have that benefit.
As of 9:25pm, with 121 of 191 precincts for the 46th Senate District counted, Dave Koehler has a 18,794 to 15,451 vote lead against his opponent, Ernie Russell (55% to 45%). And with 70 of 80 precincts for the 92nd Representative District counted, Aaron Schock has a 12,117 to 8,641 vote lead against his opponent, Bill Spears (58% to 42%).
davidh
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Update: As of 11:20pm, Aaron Schock has won 14,442 to 10,002.
Update 2: As of 1:00am, Dave Koehler has won 32,365 to 23,913. Rich Whitney got 307,650 votes for governor; the difference in votes between Blagojevich and Topinka was only 242,494.
Update 3: In the county-by-county breakdown, Whitney got anywhere from 4% to 25% of the vote. In Peoria County, he Whitney got 16.88%.