News, Entertainment, Enlightenment
Nina Yablok has a interesting article on PajamasMedia.Com in praise of front-loading washing machines particularly a Kenmore Model 4044 from Sears.
She notes that it uses much less water, heat and energy than a traditional top-loader and says that it will get out just about any stain.
Philadelphia Inquirer columnist Harold Jackson, Sunday, wrote a moving piece regarding civil rights icon Chris McNair who at the age of 85 started serving a five year sentence in federal prison in June.
McNair was convicted of corruption charges in 2006 relating to gifts he accepted as a commissioner of Jefferson County, Ala. which includes the city of Birmingham. He had been out of office five years when the conviction was obtained.
McNair’s daughter Denise, age 11, was among those killed during the Sept. 15, 1963 bombing of the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church in Birmingham by members of the Ku Klux Klan. He overcame his anguish to become a community leader and an example of Christian forgiveness. He eventually obtained his political post during which he received almost $1 million from construction companies who would eventually win bids on a $3.2 billion sewer project.
While $410,000 of the money was in cash, some of it was for work related to building a memorial room for his daughter and expanding his photography studio.
McNair claims he thought the money was gifts from people who felt bad about what happened to his daughter and that it did not influence the way he voted.
Some will sneer at this. I’m not one of them.
I find it very believable that a popular and politically unsophisticated person can be tapped to waltz into office with eyes wide in wonder by the political bosses who safely hold the real power and get the real graft.
And I find it very believable that such a person would break laws without knowing it, which would mean he would not take the easy steps to cover his tail from an ambitious trophy-seeking federal headhunter that a true hack does instinctively.
Meanwhile the true hacks who get rich and powerful from sucking our blood while laughing at the law — the Barney Franks and Charles Rangels And Timothy Geithners — remain lionized and respected.
And when one does cross a line that can’t be ignored like Jeff Epstein, well, it’s two years of house arrest.
Jackson is calling for a presidential pardon for McNair so the man would not die in jail. I wouldn’t go as far as a pardon but Obama certainly should commute his sentence to time served. He should do the same for Skrepenak too.
Inevitable Gold Standard? — Reader TomC, who knows a little bit about banking, sent a link to this fascinating Barron’s piece in which respected financial guru James Grant “promises” that the United States will soon be on a gold standard.
Grant says doing so will result in more scrutiny about government spending, as is now happening.
“We have a credit card and the gold standard would be our debit card,” he said.
Oh, and for those who spend too much time watching old media and hence fear a government default, Grant also says the “the U.S. Treasury market is pretty fine”
Brother’s Keeper By Jim Waltzer
By Jim Waltzer
The popular HBO series “Boardwalk Empire,” which will soon present fresh episodes on the small screen, is based on the Atlantic City history of the same name by Nelson Johnson, a superior court judge in Atlantic City. Mr. Johnson compiled research from numerous interviews and archival written materials to produce the most complete and penetrating account of the seashore town’s political history. The TV series captures the spirit of those rollicking vintage days along the Boardwalk, admittedly embellishing fact with entertaining fiction.
My novel “Brother’s Keeper” (on Amazon and Barnes&Noble) shares some of that timeline, as it presents the racial conflict between a black dishwasher and a white man of means, wrapped around a quirky murder mystery. It was a time when the indigenous and seasonal African-American population in Atlantic City provided the services that kept the town running, and a time rich with the color of the Roaring 20s.
If you’re headed down the shore this summer, fix one eye on the towering casino-hotels, the other on Atlantic City’s past of ornate architecture and ruling racketeers. And ride at least one wave for me (and maybe a rolling chair, too).
If you haven’t heard yet, Pennsylvania Turnpike tolls will rise 10 percent for cash customers in 2012.
The decision was made July 19 by the Pennsylvania Turnpike Commission and announced two days later.
Those using E-ZPass will not see an increase.
Except for commercial haulers. They will see a 15 percent increase as they will lose their 15 percent volume discount.
Exempted from the hike will be I-576 in the Pittsburgh area.
The money will be used to pay off bonds that were used for improvements to highways and mass transit systems.
OK, what does the Pennsylvania Turnpike Commission have to do with mass transit systems?
Nevermind.
This will be the fourth straight year the Commission has raised rates. The hike is expected to transfer $23 million from citizens to the state.
Gov. Corbett had promised not to raise taxes. He is deluding himself that increasing the transportation costs by 15 percent for those who use the state’s turnpike system to haul our food, manufactured items and consumer goods is not a tax hike, and one that will ultimately be borne by the consumer.
What’s really pathetic is that if revenue is needed highway tolls are an extraordinarily inefficient means of getting it.
This study of the system in Washington State showed that collection costs were $22 for every $100 raised, which was 25 times greater than those of a gasoline tax.
Of course, raising tolls means less screaming from us pheasants than, say, raising the gas tax. The pain is much less immediate and the source of it much less obvious. This is something well understood to those who earn their well-buttered bread by plucking us.
And also ignored by toll-road phanboys are the hidden costs. Aside from the smog-producing, gas-wasting slowdowns and snarls at the toll booths, turnpikes are extraordinarily inefficient means of providing transportation.
Consider that in the 20-miles of the free part of I-476 between I-95 and the first toll booth at Plymouth Meeting there are 10 exits. In the next 37 miles after the Plymouth Meeting interchanges there are three.
This means that there are a whole lot of drivers unnecessarily wasting time and gas on stop-light dotted roads than would be otherwise if our transportation planners were not strapped in considering the burden of toll collection.
Facebook Fake Regarding Breivik — A Facebook page allegedly created by Anders Behring Breivik, who is being cited as the being the murderer behind the July 22 terror rampage in Norway, is being circulated around the Web.
The page declares his political affiliation to be “conservative” and his religion as “Christian”.
Pamela Geller of Atlas Shrugs, however, is saying those affiliations appeared to have been added after the shootings.
She has posted explanations and sceenshots of Breivik’s original Facebook Norwegian page and the revised English one on her site.
The Lyndon LaRouche supporter who set his table outside the Springfield Post Office chose a day in which the mercury is expected to reach triple figures to tell the Saturday morning (July 23) masses who use the facility to Save NASA, Impeach Obama, and to restore the Glass-Steagall Act.
For the curious the Glass-Steagall Act was a law passed in 1933 that divided banks into commercial and investment institutions and prohibited their mixing. It was repealed in 1999.
In an unrelated note, the United States Postal Service has removed the eventually-to-close Brookside building from its official listings.
End Of Space Shuttle — Chris Freind has an interesting but sad column on the demise of our space program under President Obama.
He notes that we are in “the peculiar situation of having to rely on the very same folks who less than two decades ago were our archenemy — the Russians.”
He wonders how a parent could explain such a thing to his child.
“Dad, how do we get astronauts to the space station?”
“Well, uhhh… since we put all of our space ships into museums and don’t have any new ones, we now have to hitch a ride with the Russians. But there’s good news. They used to be our enemy, but now they’re run by the Mob.”
Check out his column here.
Two wells sprang leaks, June 4, in the Penglai 19-3 oil field in China’s Bohai Bay which is off the Yellow Sea on that nation’s northeast coast polluting 1,650 square miles of sea.
Yes, there were lots of dead fish.
So did you hear about it?
Of course not. It’s a Zen thing. If a fish dies in China and Casey Anthony is on trial does it make a sound?
The field is 51 percent owned by China National Offshore Oil Corp. and 49 percent owned by ConocoPhillips of Texas.
The Chinese government blamed ConocoPhillips for the disaster and fined it 200,000 yuan which equals $31,000.
This has upset many Chinese who have learned about the incident via Sina Weibo which is a Twitter-type service. They are pointing to the $4.7 billion coughed by BP for Deepwater Horizon disaster in the Gulf of Mexico and want a similar smack given to ConocoPhillips.
One sympathizes until one remembers that, unlike in China, the government was not the majority owner of the operation in the Gulf.
Still, if ConocoPhillips finds itself on the hook one supposes they can ask the Obama Administration for a bail out. Obama gave the OK to a $2 billion loan to the Brazilian oil company Petrobras allowing them to make a $10 billion deal with the Chinese for drilling off the coast of Brazil.
Remember hearing about that one?
Of course not. It’s a Zen thing. If a foreign oil company gets a $2 billion U.S. government loan and a Democrat is president does it make a sound?
Kudos to Congressman Pat Meehan for the innovated conference call he just completed (noon, July 20) with residents of his PA7 district wisely avoiding gatekeepers with a well-deserved reputation for hostility to conservatives.
Among the many issues Meehan touched upon was the way unnecessary and counter-productive over-regulation from Washington is destroying Delaware County refineries and Chester County pharmaceutical firms.
It doesn’t help Mother Earth any for our oil to be refined in Nigeria rather than Marcus Hook.