Autumn 2019 Starts Now — The 2019 autumnal equinox is right now 3:50 a.m. EDT, Sept. 23 according to the Old Farmer’s Almanac as the sun crosses the celestial equator. Fall has arrived in the Northern Hemisphere, and the days are now shorter than the nights and will continue to be so until the spring equinox.
The celestial equator is a circle concentric with the actual equator that extends infinitely to space. As the Earth has a 23 degree tilt the the northern half tilts towards the Sun during half its orbit and away the other half. The equinoxes occur when tilt switches.
Lots of horses were killed in making the 1936 movie Charge of the Light Brigade. Director Michael Curtis used a wire to trip the horses galloping at high speeds. About 25 of the animals died in a single battle shot. The deaths became public and the ensuing scandal led to reforms in Hollywood. In Curtis’ defense, the device called the Running W, was in common use in film at the time.
Bunny Welsh Responds To Hit Piece — Chester County Controller Margaret Reif is continuing her partisan agenda against well-respected and nationally known Sheriff Bunny Welsh despite Bunny not seeking re-election and her term ending in January.
Bunny Welsh
Ms. Reif, a Democrat, informed the Daily Local News that the Sheriff’s Department has gone over budget in overtime for three years, a common occurence in law enforcement. The Local treated the non-story as a front page scandal in the Sept. 15 Sunday edition.
A whole lot of things were left out of the story namely that the county gets a lot of that money back since the K-9 unit is used by other agencies, and that the Eric Fein jury selection occurred in Chesco.
Bunny’s attorney Dawson Muth does a good job of addressing things and we are happy to run his response.
Once again, Daily Local News reporter Michael Rellahan has penned a story and generated a front page headline filled with inaccuracies and misrepresentations in the Sunday newspaper. In his zeal to get another sensationalized headline, “Sheriff Busted OT Budget”, he merely regurgitated the unverified information provided to him by Controller Margaret Reif in her obsessive, personal attacks against the Sheriff of Chester County.
Not surprisingly, it is the same modus operandi that the Controller and reporter used last year in the attack on the Sheriffs Office nationally acclaimed, award winning K-9 unit.
As before, she tosses out raw numbers with no explanation and hopes her manipulated script can erode public trust for one of the most respected Sheriffs in the nation.
The approved budget for the Sheriffs Office, as for any law enforcement agency, is difficult to guarantee. There are many late courts such as the treatment courts, juries who deliberate into the night, long transports, extraditions and other duties that cannot always be anticipated accurately. In its approved annual $6 million dollar budget, it would not be unusual to have $80,000-$100,000 additional overtime for the year. However, that does not mean County taxpayers absorb a loss.
Much of the unanticipated overtime costs are offset substantially by revenue the Sheriffs Office generates that goes directly in the County’s general fund which the Controller conveniently fails to reference in her report.
Some community events where deputies are assigned are also reimbursed directly to the County. In fact, during the three years referenced by the Controller, more than $125,000 in overtime was billed to outside agencies and organizations for the services of the deputies.
In other circumstances, overtime relating to a criminal matter, such as the search for or apprehension of a defendant by the K-9 team may be charged to the defendant and collected as costs and restitution by the probation department. Again, the Controller fails to subtract the revenue collected because it does not bolster her bogus allegations and continues her personal pursuit of the Sheriff.
Deputy Sheriffs are required to post the annual tax sale notices. These postings require multiple trips and attempts at service for hundreds of properties, which means working extended hours. This service results in an approximate cost of $30,000 in overtime annually. Due to these postings however, the County Tax office receives millions of dollars of revenue. Another fact conveniently and blatantly ignored by the Controller.
Special security details like the high profile Eric Fein jury selection require many hours of unanticipated overtime (Frein was arrested and convicted of murdering a Pennsylvania State Trooper in Pike County). The jury selection occurred here in Chester County and required long hours in transport and high security details. Pike County reimbursed Chester County thousands of dollars for that detail reducing the overtime costs to the taxpayers of Chester County. That fact also conveniently and blatantly ignored by the Controller.
Now for the third time, the Controller is spending hundreds of office hours and countless hours with her attorney-at what cost to the taxpayers – in her ongoing attempt to tarnish the name of a Sheriff who leads one of the finest offices not only in this Commonwealth but also in the nation.
Shame on the Daily Local for colluding with the Controller in her personal crusade and assisting her in costing the taxpayers thousands of dollars while she continues her partisan attacks on the Sheriff of Chester County.
Gerhard Junker back in 1969 studied those split-ring lock washers you get in assembly packages and found they really didn’t work. Actually, he found the lock washers made the bolts get looser faster.
So why do they still make them? Got us by the sneakers.
The last aircraft designed by noted Nazi aircraft maker Willy Messerschmitt was the supersonic interceptor Helwan HA-300 for the Egyptian air force in 1964. Only seven of them were built through 1969. It never saw combat.
CEI Debunks Global Warming Panic With Chicken Little List — The Competitive Enterprise Institute has created a fantastic list of article forecasting imminent environmental doom starting in 1967.
The claims ranged from famine to ice ages to the disappearance of entire nations (and New York City’s West Side Highway) due to global warming.
All were made in major establishment media outlets by highly regarded and credentialed men of science.
Check it out here. You will understand we are skeptics of the climate change panic and likely become one yourself.
CEI Debunks Global Warming Panic With Chicken Little List
Mike Folmer Charged With Child Porn Possession — Pennsylvania State Sen. Mike Folmer, the Republican who represents the 48th District which consists of Lebanon County and parts of York and Dauphin counties, has been charged with possession of child porn.
If the charges hold it might help answer why no significant reforms occurred in this state when the Republicans held the House, Senate and governor’s office.
Yeah, we still allow teachers strikes. Yeah, Planned Parenthood still gets tax money.
Ever hear of Nerva? On this date, Sept. 18, exactly 1923 years ago, he became empire of Rome. He lasted but 15 months before dying of a stroke on Jan. 27, 98. He is considered to have been a pretty good leader.
Wolf Attack On Popular Charter SchoolsBy Nate Benefield
I watched, Sept. 16, as hundreds of charter school students flooded the Capitol and dozens of parents spoke out against Gov. Wolf’s attacks on charter school families. After they rallied in the Capitol rotunda, 1,700 letters were delivered to Gov. Wolf—letters from parents and students fearful of losing this critical educational opportunity.
The event was organized by our friends at the Pennsylvania Coalition of Public Charter Schools and comes at a desperate time. Gov. Wolf is taking unilateral executive action that would seriously threaten these public schools of choice as an educational option for parents.
In August, Gov. Tom Wolf proposed cutting funding for Pennsylvania charter schools, capping charter enrollment, and banning new cyber charter schools. Then, Gov. Wolf—without legislative authority—imposed new fees on charter schools.
At the rally, the Pennsylvania Coalition of Public Charter Schools again asked the governor to visit a charter school. While touting his “Schools that Teach Tour” since he entered office, nearly 5 years later, his tour has visited 167 schools across the state, but not a single one was a private or charter school.
Yet he seems to think he singularly knows best how their students should be treated.
By ignoring the 140,000 students attending public charter schools and 240,000 enrolled in private schools, Wolf is treating nearly 25 percent of Pennsylvania students as second-class citizens.
We need your help protecting educational opportunity for these kids. Legislation that would address charter school transparency and financial accountability has already passed the Pa. House, while legislation to create a commission on charter school funding has passed the Senate. These bills would address problems in the charter school law without taking educational opportunity away from students.
For reasons he alone knows, Gov. Wolf has chosen to ignore these legislative solutions and go his own way.
Commonwealth Foundation will continue our intellectual leadership on all types of educational opportunity, be it charter schools, tax credit scholarships, or public school funding. And we’ll keep sharing our message across the state via TV, radio, social media, and print.
Please reach out to your lawmakers to ask them to stand up for charter schools, and against Wolf’s unilateral action, by taking action on these positive steps.
The average person can detect temperature differences of a single degree Fahrenheit. Not true of Celsius which has a unit of measurement that is 1.8 times that of F.
