Month: December 2012

Courtesy of Judy McGrane

“;Fiscal Cliff” put in a much better perspective.”;

Lesson # 1:

* U.S. Tax revenue: $2,170,000,000,000
* Fed budget: $3,820,000,000,000
* New debt: $ 1,650,000,000,000
* National debt: $14,271,000,000,000
* Recent budget cuts: $ 38,500,000,000

Let’s now remove 8 zeros and pretend it’s a household budget:

* Annual family income: $21,700
* Money the family spent: $38,200
* New debt on the credit card: $16,500
* Outstanding balance on the credit card: $142,710
* Total budget cuts so far: $38.50

Got It ??…….OK now,
Lesson # 2:
Here’s another way to look at the Debt Ceiling:

Let’s say, You come home from work and find
there has been a sewer backup in your neighborhood….
and your home has sewage all the way up to your ceilings.

What do you think you should do ……

Raise the ceilings, or remove the shit?

There are at least 67 people who were born in the 19th century who lived to see the arrival of the 21st. Two of them, Bessie Cooper and Dina Manfredini died this month on Dec. 4 and Dec. 17 respectively at the ages of 116 years, 100 days and 115 years, 257 days.

Courtesy Cathy Craddock

You know it’s the Dirt Devil

Union Organizers “sent a message” to small businesses throughout the Delaware Valley…and beyond…when a competitive contractor building a $3.5 million Quaker Meeting House in Chestnut Hill was told:  “Unionize…or else!”

Lt. George McClay of Northwest Detectives said that he was certain the small Quaker building on East Mermaid Lane was targeted for arson because it is being built with nonunion labor.

This tried-and-true mob-tactic works. The union-goon torches equipment valued at half-million dollars. And the small business gets the message. Hire union and your property is safe. Don’t hire union…well.   The Mob calls it “protection”; law enforcement calls it a “racket.”

And this violence occurred in our own neighborhood. If they can do it to one of us, they can do it to any of us. If we business people are not scared, then we deserve what happens to us.

Contractors are opposed by a well-funded Leviathan union-monopoly that forces workers to pay dues to get a family-sustaining job. Unions portray themselves as if engaged in a life-and-death struggle against capitalist exploitation of the little-guy, even as they target the little-guy with violence and—oh, by the way—prevent the little-guy who is black from getting a well-paid job.

In Philadelphia, the Black power-elite has sold-out its own people to the segregated unions which blatantly discriminate against Black workers, preventing them from being trained for very well-paid union jobs.  In return for not challenging the segregated unions, Black political insiders get other contracts, political favoritism and, of course, welfare of all kinds.

Monopoly-control of labor means high salaries for union bosses, generous pay to unionized workers, but no work or menial work for those excluded; in Philadelphia, that means “Black people.”  Particularly impacted are young Black men who, probably, have a better chance of going to Harvard than becoming union electricians.

It’s not just Consumers and Taxpayers who pay more for union- monopolies-at all income levels—because everyone suffers from a culture that perpetuates backroom deals that perpetuate poverty.

It is time Philadelphia’s Unions to embrace affirmative action.

For further information regarding what happened, read in both the Philadelphia Inquirer and the Philadelphia Daily News Inga Saffron’s excellent reporting:

http://www.philly.com/philly/news/local/20121229_Phila__police_tie_construction-site_arson_to_union_sabotage.html

http://www.philly.com/philly/news/20121221_Accusations_fly_after_fire_at_Chestnut_Hill_Quaker_site.html
 

Mr. Guzzardi is a resident of Ardmore, Pa. while and Dr. Sklaroff lives in Abington.
 
 
 

By William W. Lawrence Sr

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Answer to yesterday’s puzzle: This means that anyone who belongs to Christ has become a new person. The old life is gone; a new life has begun
Saint Paul

By William W. Lawrence Sr

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Answer to yesterday’s puzzle: Each age has deemed the new-born year. The fittest time for festal cheer
Sir Walter Scott

Chalk this up to the tolerant left.

NaturalNews.Com a website that appears to be geared to healthy eating, placed on its Facebook page Mohandas Gandhi’s famous quote Among the many misdeeds of British rule in India, history will look
upon the Act depriving a whole nation of arms as the blackest.

Facebook suspended their account. After the deed became widely publicized they reinstated it.

The lesson is don’t depend on the totalitarian wannabees on Facebook to get your message out.

On the third day of Christmas — that would be Dec. 27 to you non-traditionalists — President Barack Obama signed an executive order giving the vice president, members of congress and fed workers raises which will take effect March 27.

Joe Biden’s salary goes from $225,521 to $231,900. The congress cirtters get $900 raises.

The fed workers get a half-percent raise.

What is this “fiscal cliff” they keep talking about? It doesn’t appear to apply to members of the new feudalism.

Downsizing is a contemporary, worked-to-death word, and we went through our downsizing several years ago when we moved from a Cape May home with a swimming pool, three decks, and more than an acre of ground to our present home, which is little more than a cottage.

Now there’s a lot to be said for having a big seashore home with plenty of ground for kids and grandkids to romp, but it also means you run a motel six months of the year. You see, when family comes to visit, they don’t stay for several hours and go home—they stay for several days!

Thanksgiving used to be an especially big deal that started on the Wednesday prior and lasted through Sunday. This year it began Thursday afternoon and ended Thursday evening. And there wasn’t a cargo bin of towels to run through the washer and dryer afterward. Just a dishwasher load or two.

Ahhh…it’s great when they come to visit…and great when they go home. Hey, who said that?

We thought we were all downsized—my wife and I. She retired, and me; well, writers never really retire, so I continue to work from my home office, but it’s been a while since we both dressed in our business-casual finery and left for our respective days at the office. My wife was in medical billing and I was a newspaper editor.

Recently, however, we finally came to the realization that we had never really downsized our wardrobes. We each still have a closet full of business-casual slacks, blouses, shirts, sport coats, skirts, and shoes…shoes; don’t even wander there! I think there were fewer shoes in the barracks during my Air Force days.

So our downsizing now goes into phase two: Dozens of stylish, well-kept, business-casual style outfits—male and female—are being packed into contractor bags (folded nicely, thank you) and will be promptly transported to the local Goodwill store. We’ll keep some fashionable togs for church and family gatherings (New Year’s Day of course), but we have to admit that we’re no longer the casual-business type.

Oh, we’re still casual—I won’t tell you have many of these columns I’ve written in pajamas—but at least a few other souls will now get a chance to dress in Dockers, a Van Heusan shirt, and Floorsheim penny loafers when they never would have imagined they could have looked so…metrosexual. At least that’s what I’ve been told the word for stylish is today.

Excerpted from Good Writer’s Block