Month: July 2011

Sharpshooter

The finest shot on the planet at a time when marksmanship was prized as an international sport (second half of 19th century) was one William Frank “Doc” Carver, friend of Wild Bill Hickock and Buffalo Bill Cody — so say both the dime novels and authentic newspaper documentation. After establishing his dominance, Carver teamed with Cody to form the first large-scale Wild West show. But as an entrepreneur and personality, Cody was superior. He became the icon, Carver a footnote.

But Doc Carver created an enduring show biz act after splitting from Buffalo Bill: the Diving Horses, that quirky yet dramatic splashdown that became the calling card of the Steel Pier in Atlantic City. I’m researching Carver’s life for a new book. Interesting character. — Jim Waltzer

Jim Waltzer’s novel “Brother’s Keeper,” set in 1920s Atlantic City, has just been published.

Old Media Monopoly In Philly, Yawn

The hedge fund that owns a “significant stake” in Philadelphia Media Network Inc. which is the owner of the Philadelphia Inquirer and Philadelphia Daily News, has acquired Journal Register Co. of Yardley, Pa. which owns just about all the other print publications in the Philadelphia area including most of the weeklies.

JRC banners include the Trentonian of Trenton, N.J., The Daily Times of Delaware County, The Daily Local of Chester County, The Mercury of Pottstown, and the Times Herald of Montgomery County.

The hedge fund is Alden Global Capital which has offices in New York, Dallas, Mumbai and Dubai.

Once, this type of monopoly would have been something to be concerned about but times change.

JRC and Philadelphia Newspapers LLC., which was the subsidiary of Brian Tierney’s Philadelphia Media Holdings, Inc.  that previously owned the Inquirer and Daily News,  filed for bankruptcy in the same week in February 2009.

There are decent people in both companies and I sincerely wish them all the best.

Old Media Monopoly In Philly, Yawn

Old Media Monopoly In Philly, Yawn

 

18th Century Taverns, Traffic Snarls And Global Warming

After decades of trying to figure out what to do with the building, Delaware County, Pa. is almost ready to move its tourist department into the 18th Century Rose Tree Tavern in the county-owned Rose Tree Park in Upper Providence Township.

The county, in a typical display of its insecurity, calls the department the Brandywine Conference  and Visitors Bureau. It should be noted that the Brandywine River will now be 12 miles away from the new HQ  and the Brandywine Valley is an exceedingly small portion of the historically influential county.

Regardless, the historic building is now about to be put into use and we can now address the real issue. For 200-plus years, the building  had stood about 200 feet to the southwest which meant it was almost directly at the corner of Rose Tree  and Providence roads, the latter of which would become at that particular stretch the heavily traveled State Route 252.

Plans to install  desperately needed turn lanes were always squashed due to the complexities relating to the historic structure. This meant  long exhaust-emitting, gasoline-wasting traffic jams.

So it was moved back on Aug. 10, 2004 with PennDOT bearing the entire $1.25 million bill and fixing the jams became a simple thing.

So where are the turn lanes?

We have solar panels on the Springfield Library, we have brand new rails for the Route 101 trolley but we don’t have turn lanes at a infamous problem intersection the placement of which would have done far more to alleviate pollution — and achieve energy independence — than a hundred  feel-good  projects.

The refusal of “man-made global warming” activists to get involved in the mundane and practical solutions  — like unsnarling traffic — to their various complaints is just one more reason to doubt their sincerity.

When they get around to demanding the end of toll roads and bridges is when you can get around to considering buying a Chevy Volt.

No Action On Debt Ceiling Won’t Hurt Grandpa

No Action On Debt Ceiling Won’t Hurt Grandpa — For those fearful  that the elderly will be thrown in the street and bankers will repossess the Statue of Liberty if the debt ceiling is not raised Aug. 2 here are some facts courtesy of MarketWatch.Com that will rest your troubled souls.

Tax revenue for August is expected to be $200 billion.

Now, interest on the debt will be $29 billion, Social Security outlays will be $49.2 billion (hey, wasn’t that supposed to be in a separate “lockbox” fund?????), Medicare and Medicaid outlays will be $50 billion, and $5.8 billion will be spent on active duty troop pay and veterans affairs programs.

So that leaves $66 billion without having to spend beyond our means.

The problem is that Obama wants to spend $300 billion for August.

Well as Mick Jagger once said, you can’t always get what you want.

And with the facts on the table it looks like you don’t even have to try real hard this time to find that you get what you need.

There will be dire consequences to any Republican who votes to raise the debt ceiling.

 

No Action On Debt Ceiling Won’t Hurt Grandpa

Texas Don’t Mess With; Pa. Is A Mess To Begin With

Texas Don’t Mess With; Pa. Is A Mess To Begin With — Columnist Chris Freind has just got back from Texas and tells me that there is a world of difference between that state and ours — and not in our favor.

Chris notes that Pennsylvania ranks 43rd in economic performance while Texas is number one. He notes that Pennsylvania is dead last, in fact, with regard to labor competitiveness due to the influence of unions and trial lawyers.

Texas, on the other hand, is a Right To Work state, has no state income tax and has aggressively passed legal reform measures reducing litigation costs to historic lows.

This means that 40 percent of all new jobs created in the current “recovery” have been in Texas and that Texas is only one of three states to have gained jobs since the recession began in December 2007, which not coincidentally, is not long after the Democrats took over control of Congress.

Check out Chris’ column at PhillyMag.Com

Obama Forehead Has Dubya

Obama Forehead Has Dubya

As his administration slowly sinks under the weight of the tumult of our times, and as he finds himself taxed far beyond the level of his rather limited competency, a strange, mysterious mark has begun appearing on our president’s pulsating forehead.

What could it possibly mean? It could only be the Mark of Dubya as it seems to appear when he is blaming George W. Bush for something.

It’s like a curse of some sort.

Pretty scary kids.

The photo was taken by Keith Koffler of WhiteHouseDossier.Com at Obama’s July 11 press conference.

 

Obama Forehead Has Dubya

Ant & Grasshopper For The 21st Century

Ant & Grasshopper For The 21st Century Courtesy of Fran Coppock.

OLD VERSION:
The ant works hard in the withering heat all summer long, building his house and laying up supplies for the winter.

The grasshopper thinks the ant is a fool and laughs and dances and plays the summer away. Come winter, the ant is warm and well fed. The grasshopper has no food or shelter, so he dies out in the cold.

MORAL OF THE OLD STORY: Be responsible for yourself!

MODERN VERSION:
The ant works hard in the withering heat and the rain all summer long, building his house and laying up supplies for the winter. The grasshopper thinks the ant is a fool and laughs and dances and plays the summer away.

Come winter, the shivering grasshopper calls a press conference and demands to know why the ant should be allowed to be warm and well fed while he is cold and starving.

CBS, NBC , PBS, CNN, and ABC show up to provide pictures of the shivering grasshopper next to a video of the ant in his comfortable home with a table filled with food.

America is stunned by the sharp contrast.

How can this be, that in a country of such wealth, this poor grasshopper is allowed to suffer so?

Kermit the Frog appears on Oprah with the grasshopper and everybody cries when they sing, ‘It’s Not Easy Being Green…’

ACORN stages a demonstration in front of the ant’s house where the news stations film the group singing, We shall overcome.

Then Rev. Jeremiah Wright has the group kneel down to pray for the grasshopper’s sake.

President Obama condemns the ant and blames President Bush, President Reagan, Christopher Columbus, and the Pope for the grasshopper’s plight.

Nancy Pelosi & Harry Reid exclaim in an interview with Larry King that the ant has gotten rich off the back of the grasshopper, and both call for an immediate tax hike on the ant to make him pay his fair share.

Finally, the EEOC drafts the Economic Equity & Anti-Grasshopper Act retroactive to the beginning of the summer.

The ant is fined for failing to hire a proportionate number of green bugs and, having nothing left to pay his retroactive taxes, his home is confiscated by the Government Green Czar and given to the grasshopper.

The story ends as we see the grasshopper and his free-loading friends finishing up the last bits of the ant’s food while the government house he is in, which, as you recall, just happens to be the ant’s old house, crumbles around them because the grasshopper doesn’t maintain it.

The ant has disappeared in the snow, never to be seen again.

The grasshopper is found dead in a drug related incident, and the house, now abandoned, is taken over by a gang of spiders who terrorize and ramshackle, the once prosperous and peaceful, neighborhood.

The entire Nation collapses bringing the rest of the free world with it.

MORAL OF THE STORY: Be careful how you vote in 2012

Does President Obama Care About Seniors?

President Obama has just told the nation that he couldn’t guarantee senior citizens would get their Social Security checks if the America’s debt ceiling is not raised on Aug. 2.

Republican congressional leaders have said otherwise, but the question  arises as to why the President is being so intransigent in resolving the issue if he thinks this is going to happen.

Doesn’t he care about our elderly?

0 Reads Constitution Backwards

Tea Party activist Bob Guzzardi informs me that Obama/Geithner cannot default because of the 14th Amendment doesn’t permit them to.

“The Ds are reading 14th Amendment backwards,” Bob points out. He says that Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, who clerked for Supreme Court Justice Sam Alito explains at 2:18 in the video at this link the 14th Amendment doesn’t allow default and, in clearest reading, requires that debts be honored.

Kudos To The Inquirer

Kudos To The Inquirer

I was ready to nominate the Philadelphia Inquirer for the Walter Duranty Prize after seeing the front page teaser on  on its Currents section yesterday, July 10.

It read “The miracle in Venezuela” and had a smiling picture of Hugo Chavez who is that republic’s top banana.

It turned out, however, that the miracle described in an excellent story by Andres Oppenheimer was the way that extraordinarily oil-rich nation had become an economic basket-case under the direction of an ideological incompetent.

So, will the Inquirer endorse Barack Obama again in 2012?

Note the headline on the web version uses the phrase ‘reverse miracle’ so apparently others were preparing Duranty nominations as well.