Month: July 2010

Philly School Supe Gets Extra 65Gs From Taxpayer. Why?

Philadelphia School Superintendent Arlene Ackerman is getting $65,000 on top of her ever-rising $325,000 salary, Commonwealth Foundation is reporting .

Why? Is 325G and a desire to serve children not enough to inspire her to do her best? Or maybe the state-appointed  School Reform Commission had some extra money — hey, there’s a budget crisis ? — and thought spreading it around would bring some good karma. It’s easy to be nice guys with other people’s money.

2009 was certainly not a year about which Ms. Ackerman could brag. Her most noted action was her strange non-response to violence and harassment of minority students that plague the district.

But then, why work if someone is going to give your $65,000 for sitting on your tail?

Fat Cat Democrat Angst

Fat Cat Democrat Angst — With drastic regulations looming and massive economic incompetence having been demonstrated the fat cat Democrats of Wall Street are turning off the spigot to the party of their hope and in some cases are actually giving money to Republicans, providing the Pub drinks the right kind of chardonnay and doesn’t take going to church all that seriously.

Jamie Dimon, head of J.P. Morgan Chase  gave $65,000 to theDemocratic committees in 2006 and 2008, but has given nothing this cycle. He has, however, sent a $2,000 check to Mark Kirk who is running for  Obama’s former Senate seat in Illinois. Yes, Kirk is the right kind of Republican.

Leon Black,co-founder of Apollo Global Management, along with wife, Debra, gave over $200,000 to theDemocratic committees in the last two elections. This year the Blacks have given the donkey party nada.

And Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein who ponied up $50,000 for the Dems in ’06 and ’08 has also cut off Obama, Reid and Pelosi.

So why did these barons of capitalism swoon over the party of socialism in the first place? Crony capitalism was somewhat involved — and in Blankfein’s case it actually paid off a bit — but the main reason was their loathing of those who think the reality of God is relevant to governance and lifestyle.

In other words, their desire to kill babies trumped their desire for wealth and freedom. You reap what you sow. If they would read the Bible they would know that.

Fat Cat Democrat Angst

Fat Cat Democrat Angst

Obama DOJ Not To Enforce Law Requiring Cleaning Voting Lists

The Obama administration has directed Department of Justice staffers not to enforce the law requiring  lists of dead or inactive voters be expunged, according to J. Christian Adams, the  DOJ official whose May 14 resignation stems from the administration’s squelching of voter intimidation charges against members of the New Black Panther Party for an incident that occurred on Election Day 2008 in Philadelphia.

The requirement is mandated by the 1993 Motor Voter Act.

Adams says the order was given last November at a meeting of the DOJ’s Voting Section convened by Deputy Assistant Attorney General Julie Fernandes, a political appointee.

Adams quoted her as saying “We have no interest in enforcing this provision of the law. It has nothing to do with increasing turnout, and we are just not going to do it.”

Adams says the jaws of Voting Staff collectively dropped.

Adams says he expects the matter to be corroborated by the many honest staff members in attendance, and notes that since the announcement the DOJ has not filed a single case regarding the Motor Voter provision.

Even more damming, Attorney General Eric Holder has dismissed a case started by the Bush Administration regarding voter roll expunging in Missouri. Adams says that in many places in Missouri there are more voters than humans with heartbeats.

Feds Want More Pain For Fumo

Federal prosecutors think the 4.5-year sentence given to the Democrat who represented the 1st District in the Pennsylvania State Senate from 1978 to 2008 was too soft and are appealing it , which is a rather unusual thing for prosecutors to do.

The feds wanted the 67-year-old Fumo to get 15 years for his three decades of scam and graft at the taxpayers expense but U.S. District Judge Ronald Buckwalter chose instead to hear to the pleas for leniency from Gov. Rendell and other political luminaries in the state, and hence Fumo has an expectation of one day walking out of the Ashland Federal Prison in Kentucky where he is serving his sentence.

Personally, I’m OK with the 4.5 years since Fumo has also lost his $100 G pension and I don’t think that what Fumo did is any less vile than what Gov. Rendell just did in authorizing $300 million in hand-picked pork projects as bankruptcy looms for the state.

Frankly, I don’t think Fumo’s thievery is any less immoral than protected-from-firing public school teachers making $87,000–plus  voting to strike for a raise that will put a few more grains of sand on the back of widow on a fixed income trying to keep the home in which she raised her kids.

Besides, Fumo is still likely to serve more that the 27-months that his 1st District predecessor did for his thievery.

The feds are also appealing the one-year sentence of Ruth Arnao who was Fumo’s aide.

Foxy Loxy’s Den And The National Academy

The National Academy of Sciences has in its official journal Proceedings
of the National Academy of Sciences,  published a list
of 496 scientists whom it claims should not be believed on the subject of
global warming.  It includes people like Freeman Dyson;  Roger Pielke, who may be the nation’s leading meteorologist; and William Happer, who saved the taxpayers from funding the Pons-Fleishmann cold fusion boondoggle.

If global warming were true those who claim to be acolytes would not be fudging data or squelching dissent. In fact they would be welcoming dissent in order to expose the flaws behind it. They would  have lifestyles mirroring their concerns to underline the severity of the crisis.

They would be demanding that CO2-emitting coal and natural gas power plants be replaced with CO2-free nuclear ones. They  would be screaming in opposition about the impending destruction of hydro-electric plants.

Of course they do fudge data, squelch dissent, live lives of large carbon footprints, oppose nuclear power and don’t object to the destruction of dams so the wise person should assume that AGW is BS.

The New TSOP–Tax $ Giving Philly Its Own Gaza Strip

Tax-free charitable gifts along with federal grants and loans have been used to turn a section of South Philadelphia into an Islamic enclave.

Universal Companies — the charity established in 1993 by the artist formerly known as Kenny Gamble — has spent $1.6 billion to promote Islam much of it in the 800 block of South 15th Street, according to Paul Williams , Ph.D, of FamilySecurityMatters.org. The neighborhood now has a mosque and an Islamic charter school and tough-looking security guards on corners in kufis .

Gamble and Leon Huff are the founders of Philadelphia International Records and wrote some of the biggest hits of the 1970s including Me and Mrs. Jones, Love Train and TSOP (The Sound of Philadelphia). Gamble converted to Islam in 1975 and took the name Luqman Abdul Haqq

Gamble now holds a high ranking position in the Muslim Alliance in North America (MANA) which focus on converting Blacks to Islam especially in prisons.

Gamble is also connected with the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR ) but then so is Springfield’s own Congressman Joe Sestak (D-Pa7) and Joe wants to be senator.

In other Islamic news, Afshan Azad, the young lady who has been portraying Padma Patil in the Harry Potter movies, is now expressing regret for reporting the beating for which her father and brother have spent five weeks in an English jail. Dad and bro beat and threatened to kill Miss Azad for dating a Hindu boy. Miss Azad is from a British Muslim family.

Hey Kenny, tell all the folks in Egypt we don’t want their  garbage theology. Maybe Sestak should move to Cairo and run for senator over there.

Channel 6 Where Are You?

Channel 6 Where Are You? — Those using an antenna for television might be wondering whatever happened to WPVI-Channel 6 when broadcasting went digital on June 11, 2009.

WPVI is owned by ABC.

Channel 6 is Philadelphia’s second-oldest station behind the CBS-owned KYW- Channel 3 and has been broadcasting since 1947. The low VHF channels were once the prime real estate for broadcasting.  These frequencies, however, require large antennae or antennae with amplifiers  for good reception and are susceptible to interference from  sources such as FM radio stations.

And the strong FM signals being sent by the   WXPN 88.5,  WRTI 90.1 and WHYY 90.9 which are co-located on a tower in Roxborough are getting in the way of the WPVI signal.

The FCC gave WPVI permission to boost its power two weeks ago from 7.5 kilowatts to 30.6 kilowatts which is the maximum allowed in the Northeast.

As of today, however, it is still not being received in central Springfield.

Channel 6 Where Are You?

A Creeping Lawlessness In Government

The J. Christian Adams matter is getting a little traction. Even the Philadelphia Inquirer felt obliged to put an AP version on its website.

On Election Day 2008, a couple of thugs at polling place at 1221 Fairmount St., Philadelphia made racially disparaging comments and brandished weapons at poll watchers and voters. The thugs were black and members of a group called the New Black Panther Party.

After the election, the Justice Department brought a voter intimidation case against them. Adams was among the attorneys who pursued the case and won an entry of default after the defendants ignored the charges. Before the final judgment could be rendered though, the case was ordered dismissed. This was in May 2009,

On May 14, 2010, Adams resigned from the Department and went public a few weeks later with what has been occurring. He wrote that “the dismissal is part of a creeping lawlessness infusing our government institutions” and that “citizens would be shocked to learn about the open and pervasive hostility within the Justice Department to bringing civil rights cases against nonwhite defendants on behalf of white victims”.

Adams noted that this put “core American principles of equality before the law and freedom from racial discrimination . . . at risk”.

Adams has talked about this at length on Fox News and it has been a matter of discussion on talk radio. Still, there is a sheep-like segment of this country that will dismiss what Adams is saying out-of-hand solely because he has used those venues. To them, I say prepare to be sheared.

The corruption on display in the New Black Panther Party matter isn’t that much different than that which occurred in the Gerald Walpin matter.

Penn State Clears Hockey-Stick Mann

A little whitewash and the Pennsylvania taxpayer connection to Climategate has disappeared. At least that’s what the Penn State University administrators are hoping.

Penn State, which uses state appropriations for about 10 percent of its $2.5 billion budget, cleared Dr. Michael Mann of any scientific misconduct relating to the scandal.

Mann heads the university’s  Earth System Science Center.

Climategate occurred when emails were leaked  last November from the University of East Anglia’s Hadley Climatic Research Centre in the United Kingdom that showed  leading climate researchers to have played tricks with data and conspired to stifle dissenters regardingthe global warming catastrophe story.

Mann was one of those tricksters most notably by leaving out data points in his infamous “hockey stick” graph which was widely claimed to have proved that earth temperatures were drastically increasing. The graph is  something that has been scaring children, Oprah viewers and Democrats for a decade.

Anyway, Penn State, touching up the spots it missed in February , has found Mann did nothing wrong. The reasons it cited for coming to this conclusion were — what you are about to read is not a joke remember  — “This level of success in proposing research, and obtaining funding to conduct it,clearly places Mann among the most respected scientists in his field” and”Had Dr. Mann’s conduct been outside the range of accepted practices, it would have been impossible for him to receive so many awards”

A link to the pdf of the complete report.

Penn State Clears Hockey-Stick Mann

SEPTA’s Going To Party Like It’s 7-1-2010

SEPTA’s fare hike took effect today with the the price of a token rising ten cents to$1.55; a weekly transit pass jumping from $20.75 to$22; and transfers for subway, bus and trolleys being hiked 25 centsto $1.

Also off-peak discounts were ended for regional rail.

Base fares on buses, subways and trolleys remain $2.

Meanwhile it has been revealed that SEPTA officials have been enjoying thousand-dollar company lunches at places like Fountain Restaurant at the Four Seasons Hotel in Center City.

The trolley and bus drivers are generally pretty decent people who work honest hours for what they get but has it occurred to anyone else that management has no real incentive to grow the largely tax-funded authority. In fact, it seems, that if ridership were to significantly increase they would, well, have to work harder, and why would they want to do that if they are taking lunches at swank restaurants now?

They are clearly not trying to grow. How much marketing do you see for SEPTA? Maybe a rewritten press release in the dino media but not much. If you should have moved into the area, did you ever get a direct-mail piece describing what SEPTA could do for you and how to use the system and get discounts? Maybe free passes to sample the service?

Of course not.

More riders would mean more people to deal with which would mean more headaches. It’s much easier to be able to leave the cell phone off at catered affairs.