News, Entertainment, Enlightenment
Sweet Gift For The Salvation Army — An anonymous donor dropped 55 fresh $100 bills into a Salvation Army kettle deduced to have been stationed at a K-Mart in Fort Olglethorp, Ga. The money was desperately needed. Request for Army services in the area were up 30 percent in the area over the previous year.
A pox on all corporate bean-counters who forbid the Army from placing kettles outside their stores.
The Army is likely the most efficient major charity in the world.
Every resident of Pennsylvania owes $9,600 in state and local debt as of 2009, according to Nate Benefield of Commonwealth Foundation. This does not account for the $3 billion deficit in unemployment compensation or the billions in debt assumed in the Gen Theft pension bailout .
And of course this doesn’t account for the money for which they are on the hook regarding the massive federal debt.
So Pennsylvanians, and the rest of Americans, are going to continue to become poorer until they develop skin thick enough to withstand being called “uncaring” and “hateful” by greedy government-connected types who use emotional blackmail as a means of acquiring wealth and power.
Benefield notes that Pennsylvania’s general obligation debt rose by almost $2 billion, or 28 percent, during Gov. Rendell’s reign of robbery.
On a related note, in Michigan, Detroit Mayor Dave Bing has developed a plan in response to his city’s fiscal crisis that would end services — including trash collection, road repair and fire/police/ambulance responses — to about 45 square miles of the city. Call it urban planning by Mad Max.
Pennsylvania, do you see your future?
The Westboro Baptist Church which has become infamous for its unChristian, hate-based protests of military funerals and prominent people is bringing its barrel of Christmas bile to the shores of the Delaware Dec. 20.
Allegedly anyway. It claimed it would hold a protest outside Temple University in April but never showed up.
The scheduled protests are to occur outside Father Judge and Archbishop Ryan high schools, and the Jewish Community Center, at Broad and Lombard streets in Center City.
According to rantings on the cult’s website the protests outside the Catholic high schools are somehow related to the priest sex-abuse scandals.
And the one at the Jewish Community Center? Who knows?
The Phelps family, which leads and makes up most of the congregants of the Kansas-based Westboro cult, has been prominent in that state’s Democrat Party.
Fred Phelps Jr. — who is the son of the founder and a member of the cult —Â hosted Al Gore
at his home for a fundraiser and was a Gore delegate to the 1988
Democratic National Convention.
Dihydrogen Monoxide Ban Sought — A petition was passed at the just ending Cancun Climate Summit in which a ban for dihydrogen monoxide was sought. Summit goers were told that the substance contributes to the greenhouse effect, is a major substance in acid rain, can be fatal if inhaled, causes land erosion and is used in nuclear power plants, and the production of pesticides. The petitioners said the ban would cause a reduction in the gross national product of the United States by 6 percent.
The summit goers happily signed their names.
Dihydrogen monoxide can be written as D2MO.
Or H2O.
What was illustrated, of course, was that those leading the environmental movement are idiots.
The video record can be found here.
John Eleuthère du Pont was pronounced dead at 6:55 morning, Dec. 9, at Somerset (Pa) Community Hospital. where he had been taken after being found unresponsive in his prison cell at Laurel Highlands State Prison nearby. He was 72. Authorities say he appears to have died of natural causes.
Du Pont, an heir to the du Pont chemical fortune and who appeared on magazine lists of America’s richest people, was convicted of 3rd degree murder for the Jan. 26, 1996 shooting of Olympic gold medal wrestler Dave Schultz at Foxcatcher Farms which was duPont’s Newtown Square estate.
Third degree murder indicates the lack of intent to kill, and the jury also found him mentally ill. Defense experts testified he had been a paranoid schizophrenic who believed Schultz was part of an international conspiracy to kill him.
He was arrested after a two-day siege at his mansion which was featured on news broadcasts throughout the world. Police took him into custody when he left the house to check on a generator the police had shut off.
Judge Patricia Jenkins sentenced him to 13 to 30 years in State Prison. He was denied parole the first time he became eligible on Jan. 29, 2009.
He is said to be the richest man ever to be convicted of murder in America.
Du Pont was an athlete, a helicopter pilot who assisted local police, and had a Ph.d in natural science from the University of Villanova. The university’s basketball stadium, The Pavilion, was named The Du Pont Pavilion until his conviction. He was also Villanova’s wrestling coach for a time.
He founded the Delaware Museum of Natural History in 1957 which opened to the public in 1972.
He was married in 1983 but the marriage lasted only 90 days and was annulled amid allegations of abuse.
Du Pont’s 1987 self-published book “Off The Mat” features photos of himself with presidents Ronald Reagan and Gerald Ford, and Olympic great Mark Spitz. There is a picture of himself lying in a snowy field with a sniper rifle which describes him as a “dedicated public servant and volunteer law enforcement officer” joining “in a winter midnight manhunt”.
After his mother Jean Liseter Austin du Pont died in 1988, du Pont became more erratic. The editor of the local weekly remembers receiving a phone call from him crying and asking why the obituary had not been published.
He began calling himself the Dalai Lama dressing in a long, red robe.
He lost his coaching slot at Villanova after wrestlers began objecting to his behavior. A lawsuit was filed by an assistant coach alleging he had been fired because he spurned a request from du Pont to be his lover.
Du Pont’s answering machine message became “You have reached the John du Pont residence. I am probably here right now but I am screening my calls.”
Finally, one January day he approached Dave Schultz who was working on his car at a guest house on the estate. Schultz looked up and said “hi coach” and du Pont shot him three times killing him.
Du Pont’s Foxcatcher Farms estate has been broken up for development. Much of it is now the new home of the storied Episcopal Academy .
Reader Tom C points out more bureaucratic stupidity with the removal of exit prices from Pennsylvania Turnpike toll tickets. It’s a cost saving move just in case the noble and dedicated public servants who staff the Turnpike Commission decide to jack up prices again.
What this means is that more people are going to be waiting for change at toll booths as they will be far less likely to have it the exact fare ready.
Pa.’s toll prices are rising 10 percent for ticket users and 3 percent for E-ZPass users this Jan. 1.
To really save overhead how about we just turn the roads into freeways? Traffic flow will improve, energy will be saved, transportation will become cheaper and the Port of Philadelphia will become more competitive which will mean more jobs and foreign revenue.
Well, more productive jobs anyway. I guess one has to say that paying people to sit and booths and snarl traffic is a job, and of course they will no longer be there.
Obviously, Pennsylvania teachers are not in it “for the children.”
The Keystone State, as always, led the nation in teachers strikes last year with eight matching the ’08-’09 total and up one from ’07-’08. And we are not talking close contests here. More than half the school strikes in the nation occur annually in Pennsylvania.
And for what? The average salary for a Pennsylvania teacher in 2007 was then $54,970 for 190 days work, which was behind six states that prohibited such a child-hating practice.
Gov-elect Corbett has said he might support banning teacher strikes and adopt a mandate for binding arbitration to solve disputes. Binding arbitration for teachers, however, would be against the state Constitution as StopTeacherStrikes.Org clearly points out.
And considering those who would likely do the picking for the arbiters, the problem could conceivably be made worse.
So what to do? It’s not complicated. Teachers acquired their right to strike in 1970 with the passing of Act 195 .
Section 401 reads It shall be lawful for public employees to organize, form, join or assist
in employee organizations or to engage in lawful concerted activities
for the purpose of collective bargaining . . .
Change the first four words to read It shall be unlawful. Repeal articles VI, VII, VIII and IX.
Problem is solved. Taxes drop and schools improve. Win-win for everyone but the child-haters.
Pennsylvania is going to have to start anteing up interest payments come January for its bankrupt unemployment compensation fund, according to Commonwealth Foundation .
The state owes Washington $3 billion for unemployment compensation but for now has been spared paying interest. Starting next month it will being forking over 3.9 percent on the debt.
Thank you Democrats. Thank you Obama voters. Wheeee. Money is freeeee.