Who Respects Freedom of Religion?

It's the dog days of summer in Pittsburgh, and elections are starting to heat up in Pennsylvania. Voting day in this mid-term election is Tuesday November 2. Joe Sestak is fighting it out with Pat Toomey to take Arlen Specter's space. Joe made waves earlier this year when he pulled off a Democratic Primary upset against Specter. In the meantime, he's gained some major support from the party with New York City Mayor Bloomberg endorsing Sestak this week in light of his pro-Constitution stance in light of the effort to build a mosque in Lower Manhattan.

"Joe believes there is a Constitutional right to religious freedom and separation of church and state that applies equally to all Americans," Sestak spokesman Jonathon Dworkin said. "But he is not looking to say what is best for New York - as long as that right is respected - he is focused on Pennsylvania."

Meanwhile, Toomey has spoken out against the building of a mosque in Lower Manhattan.

"It is provocative in the extreme to build a mosque in the shadow of ground zero," said Toomey spokeswoman Nachama Soloveichik. "Islamic leaders should be encouraged to move the mosque elsewhere."

A recent poll shows Toomey has pulling ahead in the Senate race with a 9-point advantage. Public Policy Polling finds that in spite of an advantage in registered Democrats, Democrats are less likely to vote in this election. I, for one, will be trying to prove them wrong on November 2. I hope that the Republican party pulls more stunts like trying to limit freedom of religion in the run-up to these mid-term elections because I think they will find that us Democrats do get riled up about more than "change." As soon as we start limiting freedom of religion, we stop being a free democracy and start on the path to a religious state. No thank you.

News Briefs Besides the G20

Hard to see through all the "news" about the G20 to what's actually going on around here.

So, what is going on around here?

• 2 Violent robberies in the South Side on Sunday. Does this have anything to do with moving the police station up the hill? I sure hope not. But while I don't want to get robbed on the South Side walking back from the bar, in some ways, I'd rather there were robberies down on the South Side or over in Squirrel Hill instead of Garfield and Allentown. Maybe then the people that donate to political campaigns will insist on making all public safety a priority in this city.
  
  
• "Still no state budget, Rendell talks taxes" [and pension takeovers]. Unlike the Mayor, I'm very torn on this issue. I think that Pittsburgh has clearly gotten itself in a pickle with pensions, but I don't trust the state to do any better. After all, we've been in Act 47 for over 5 years and we're worse than when we started in terms of pensions. As I see it, that's akin to putting someone in jail, telling them when to eat, sleep, and shit, then complaining about the results. How about the state takes off the handcuffs and gives Pittsburgh a chance to start again?
  
  
• Faith trumps bureaucracy. Yet again, faith-based groups are showing that through hard work and determination, they can clean up neighborhoods and keep folks out of jail. Just imagine if they could strengthen their numbers by involving all the protesters from Planned Parenthood.
  
  
• Pittsburgh Public Schools are solidly in the running for a big chunk of change from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. Throwing more money at a problem never hurt, right? And they went through some pretty intensive hoops to get this money, so maybe it'll produce better teachers and improve college-readiness of Pittsburgh students as intended. If not, at least we'll all feel better knowing our latest Windows upgrade went to a good cause.
  

What's Going On In Fayette County?

Am I the only one wondering what's going on in Fayette County?

A Labrador puppy was killed and burned and a house cat was shot with an arrow?

That's your sicko Pittsburgh region news for the day (and hopefully the year.)

Note to sicko's: just because you can shoot deer in this region does not mean you can shoot beloved domesticated pets. You deserve to be punished under the full extent of the law for these heinous crimes. Maybe today, I'll be one of those 5% of atheists that's praying for these lost pets that may or may not have souls.

Fat Wednesday

While paczki are a foreign delight to me, the fish-on-fridays and 40-days-of-resolutions all leading up to chocolate-bunny-day are all very familiar to me and my very Catholic Massachusetts hometown. I met my first Jewish person in high school and was under the impression that Catholics were the vast majority of this country until college. Catholicism and I have since parted ways but I still have a soft spot for the various festivities it offers.

In light of being thankful that Jesus hallucinated in the desert for 40 days without food and water, I offer the following news articles that made my day.

1) Abstinence-only education in Pittsburgh schools has been eliminated. One can only hope that some of the millions that Obama is cutting out in his upcoming budget is the sickening Federal governments grants for nationwide abstinence-only education. Needless to say, I have strong feelings on this issue. This is not one of those fond memories of Catholicism for me.

2) The Mon Wharf re-construction actually begins very shortly. One more piece of the city's bike path puzzle is being worked on, and we are one step closer to having one of the most bad-ass city bike trail in the country.

3) Natural Gas prices have dropped for my local supplier. Every time I attempt to wrap my head around commodity charges and gas cost adjustments and distribution charges, my head hurts and some wonk says that it's all good because Pennsylvania gas companies aren't allowed to make a profit while my gas bill edges higher and natural gas prices plummet. This time it still hurts my head, but I double-checked my gas bill for the month, and my rate did actually drop to relatively close to what it was a year ago.

So today, I'm a content blogger - or at least this morning. Hopefully Luke and Onorato and all their friends and enemies can hold off on stupidity for the rest of the day or till Easter. Perhaps it can be their Lenten resolution? Is that too much to hope? Maybe then I can find something positive to say about Pittsburgh politics every day of Lent.