News, Entertainment, Enlightenment
Commonwealth Foundation has posted this graph of Facebook showing that Pennsylvania spends $2,900 more per student than the national average, and that two thirds of the state’s residents are blithely unaware of it.
Thank you old media. That was sarcasm.
OpenPaGov.org estimates that Pennsylvania in 2012-13 spent $15,341 per pupil.
Hat tip Donna Ellingsen.
The Pennsylvania Fish and Boat Commission is hosting a Mentored Youth Fishing Day on Labor Day, Monday, Sept. 1, on 17 Panfish Enhancement Lakes, the closest one to Delaware County being Chambers Lake in Chester County’s Hibernia Park which is on Route 82 north of Coatesville.
To encourage participation, the PFBC has reduced the price of a Labor Day one-day adult resident and Labor Day one-day adult non-resident license to just $1 on Labor Day, says State Rep. Jim Cox (R-129). With issuing agent and transaction fees, the total price for the one-day adult license is $2.70.
To participate in the Mentored Youth Fishing Day, anglers 16 years of age or older (adult anglers) must possess a valid Pennsylvania fishing license and be accompanied by a youth (less than 16 years of age) who has obtained a Mentored Youth Fishing Permit or Voluntary Youth Fishing License from the commission.
For full details on program requirements and the availability of these one-day licenses, visit the Pennsylvania Fish and Boat Commission’s website here.
House Resolution 882 designated Aug. 24 through Sept. 6 as back-to-school weeks in Pennsylvania, reports State Rep. Jim Cox (R-129).
Residents are reminded to watch for reduced speed limits in school zones, be cautious around school transportation vehicles and be on the lookout for crossing guards that may stop traffic for students.
Many children will also be involved in extracurricular activities around school campuses even after the school day is completed, so continue to be on the lookout for pedestrians around schools.
The old saw about it not being the heat but the humidity as the cause of summer misery is not the best summation. Dew point is the key to comfort.
“Dew point” is a phrase often seen on weather reports but little pondered. The words describe the temperature at which water vapor — which is measured as humidity — condenses at the rate it evaporates. As this is dependent on air pressure, this is not a constant.
If the temperature is below the dew point, the water stays rather than goes. High dew points mean discomfort. As it is the evaporation of perspiration that cools the skin, the slower the evaporation, the slower the cooling.
If you want to calculate the dew point yourself, this link explains how. We’ll stick to the weather report.
Forbes.com is claiming American poor don’t exist and is basing the claim on this study by the Brookings Institution.
That’s right, there is no poor in the United States. The war on poverty is over. We won.
Of course, Brookings, a liberal-leaning think tank that is called most influential in the world, doesn’t really say it that way. In fact, it claims that “millions of Americans live on less than $2 a day — a threshold commonly used to measure poverty.”
Forbes, however, rebuts it pointing out income, as officially defined, is a bad metric as it does not account for the various government subsidies provided such as SNAP and Section 8 housing vouchers.
More significantly, it points out that the $2 a day standard when applied to developing countries is based on consumption, not income.
When this standard is applied to the United States, it is found that consumption is the same for those who report zero income and those who report $20 per day income — which is adjusted to account for the values of the many different currencies.
According to global standards, middle class is between a globally adjusted $12 and $50 per day.
So, yes, there is no poor in America which is something that could easily be determined by driving through the lowest-income neighborhood one can find and counting the dish antennas, window air conditioning units, cars parked on the street, and observing the absence of malnutrition among the residents.
Suffering in the United States is not caused by lack of material things. It is caused by making stupid choices and living in proximity to those who exalt in making such choices.
The Taney Dragons, the melting pot of a baseball team from Philadelphia with a black girl pitcher, won the hearts of all with their just-ended Little League World Series run in which they finished third in the nation.
So where does the name Taney come from? It’s from Taney Street, a four-block stretch of pavement that runs from Pine to Bainbridge just across the Schuylkill River from Penn.
And for whom is Taney Street named? That’s the irony. It is for the man who wrote the Dred Scott decision, the most racist and viciously destructive Supreme Court decision in our history.
Dred Scott was more hateful and irrational than Roe v Wade. It was more racist than Plessy v Ferguson. It was crueler than Buck vs Bell.
It declared blacks to be less than human. It started the Civil War.
Roger Taney was a Democrat — no surprise, really –from Maryland who was picked by Andrew Jackson to be Chief Justice of the Supreme Court in 1835 after the great John Marshall died in a stage coach accident.
It is said he favored States’ Rights but that certainly wasn’t the case concerning slavery. In 1842, he ruled that Pennsylvania could not stop a Maryland man from seizing former slaves that had taken up residence in the Keystone State.
It was in 1857, he really let the mask drop. In Dred Scott he wrote regarding blacks:
It is difficult at this day to realize the state of public opinion in regard to that unfortunate race which prevailed in the civilized and enlightened portions of the world at the time of the Declaration of Independence, and when the Constitution of the United States was framed and adopted; but the public history of every European nation displays it in a manner too plain to be mistaken. They had for more than a century before been regarded as beings of an inferior order, and altogether unfit to associate with the white race, either in social or political relations, and so far unfit that they had no rights which the white man was bound to respect
So much for “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal”
Those governing Philadelphia at the time apparently thought the decision was peachy. They named the street for him the next year.
Three years after that our country’s bloodiest war began. Taney died before it ended on Oct. 12, 1864, still the chief justice and giving as much grief to the Lincoln administration as he could but with his fangs largely pulled.
So thank you Mo’ne Davis and the rest of the Dragons, for the deserved mocking you gave to one of America’s great bigots.
Mish’s Global Economic Trend Analysis is reporting that 40 percent of the U.S. is on welfare which is more than those who are full-time employed.
The site claims that Obamacare has expanded welfare by 23 million.
The reasoning can be read here.
Hat tip Tom Coniglia
Ukrainian Catholic Priest Father Ighor Fedoryshyn, who is pictured at a camp near the front lines in his embattled homeland, has sent the following message (translated using Google) via John Jushchyshyn of Upper Darby, Pa.
Glory to Jesus Christ.
Sir Ivan, I was again in Kiev, praying in the street of the dead heroes posvyachuvav hundred self-defense. Ukraine and Ukrainian continue their struggle for the independence of our country.
I am chaplain “right market” that the most active in this fight is not easy. Six weeks back I want to go to the square, we can not stand aside while. when people fight and die for their rights. Wife quarrels with me, to let go, worried about me, but my civic duty to be where my people, where are my heroes. We will continue our repair an old hut in this time of peril is difficult to allocate funds for the repair and the street, but when the win, everything will fall into place. The main thing is not to lose fight to the end. Transfer greeting to his wife, children and all those Ukrainian America that . . . care about the future of our country, our country.
The man the Obama administration tapped to head Information Technology (IT) security at the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) was convicted yesterday, Aug. 26, of seven counts relating to internet child porn and faces a long prison stretch.
Timothy DeFoggi, 56, was found guilty by a Nebraska jury of engaging in a child exploitation enterprise, conspiracy to advertise and distribute child pornography, and accessing a computer with intent to view child pornography, all federal charges.
DeFoggi registered for a child porn website operated by Aaron McGrath, 31, on March 2, 2012, and remained a active member until Dec. 8, 2012 when the site was taken down by the FBI, according to a statement from the Department of Justice.
McGrath has since been convicted of charges related to running it and is serving a 20-year sentence.
DeFoggi’s name was on an HHS flowchart from 2013 given to Congress to determine appropriations for 2014.
Maybe if Obama would take things a bit more seriously, we wouldn’t end up with perverts running computer security.
Where do these guys come from anyway and how to they end up in influential positions?
Didn’t see anything in today’s Philadelphia Inquirer, by the way, concerning this rather important story.
The chart HHS provided in 2013 to congressional committees for 2014 appropriations with DeFoggi’s name right there at the top.
Tonight’s mean by Chef Bill Sr was grilled eggplant parmesan (thank you Andrew.
Note that is grilled eggplant. No breading or frying in oil.
The sides were deviled eggs by Mrs. Chef Bill and an antipasto featuring summer sausage supplied by #2 son and fresh garden tomatoes.
The wine was an inexpensive but delicious Dancing Bull merlot from one of Pennsylvania’s socialist liquor stores. If our memory is correct it was a Chairman’s Select.