A Looming War But Blue Devils’ Work Won’t Be Ignored

Today’s front page of the Philadelphia Inquirer carried stories on the latest attempt to plug the Deepwater Horizon leak, the squelching of a no-bid development deal for Family Court building in Philadelphia, girls lacrosse, puffing repeal of “don’t ask don’t tell”, the Academy of Natural Sciences, and Harrisburg corruption.

On page 2, they carries an update piece from Obama sources about how China is “likely to join rebuke of N. Korea” — which does not seem to be available on their website and has a markedly different slant than  this piece this morning from Bloomberg.Com: China May Shield North Korea As Lee, U.S. Seek Action.

On March 26, the South Korean frigate Cheonan was sunk by a North Korean submarine. Today, South Korea held a major naval exercise featuring anti-submarine drills, and U.S. Gen. Walter Sharp — who heads the U.S.-South Korean combined forces command which includes the 28,500 U.S. troops stationed there — raised the watch level from 3 to 2 one notch below the highest level.

North Korea responded by ending an agreement designed to prevent armed clashes at  maritime border with South Korea and warned of “immediate physical strikes” if any South Korean ships enter its waters.

North Korea is an impoverished dying nations but armed with nuclear weapons developed during the Clinton years. It’s military also has an enormous artillery component and South Korea’s capital of Seoul is within range of those guns.

Meanwhile, President Obama is meeting with the Duke Blue Devils basketball team to honor their sacrifice and effort  in winning the NCAA championship. He leaves for Chicago tonight to chill out over the Memorial Day weekend, which unfortunately will mean he is unavailable for the traditional presidential Memorial Day visit to Arlington Cemetery to honor the sacrifice and effort that involved keeping America free.

I hope he doesn’t chill out so much he can’t handle any 3 a.m. phone calls.

Pennsylvanians Are Right Wing Fanatics

A Rasmussen poll this month shows that by the definitions of some most Pennsylvanians are right-wing extremists.

In a poll of 500 likely voters, Rasmussen found that 53 percent supported an immigration law like the one recently passed in Arizona, 71 percent believed a police officer should check driver’s for immigration status during traffic stops and 61 percent supported the repeal of Obamacare.

Description Of The Springfield Conman

The man who conned a widow out of $50 in the Rolling Road/Windsor Circle area of Springfield, Pa. has been described as stocky, not-tall, with fair hair and a ruddy face.

Super Secret Space Plane Mission

Super Secret Space Plane Mission — The super secret X-37B robot space plane is being used to develop spy satellites a group of amateur skywatchers have deduced. The space plane had its historic inaugural launch without fanfare on April 22, 2010 from Cape Canaveral and there was much speculation that it was designed to herald a new reign of space weapons.

Super Secret Space Plane Mission
Watching the inaugural April 22 launch of the X-37B robot space plane from Indian Harbor Beach, Fla. are Margaret Jane Lawrence and granddaughter Skyler Jane Lawrence.

The skywatchers, however, have been tracking the plane and have determined that it is following the pattern of a spy satellite. It is orbiting the planet every 90 minutes at an altitude of 225 miles.

Of course science fiction fans might wonder why some might not think it useful to put weapons on spy satellites.

Super Secret Space Plane Mission

Conman Stalks Springfield

A widow living in the Rolling Road/Windsor Circle area of Springfield, Pa. was the victim of a conman who confronted her in her backyard and asked to borrow $50 to pay the tow fee for his car, last week. He identified himself as her new neighbor who had just moved in to a recently sold house a few doors down, apparently showing some knowledge of the neighborhood.

Springfield Police have been notified.

Be From Pa. And Scoff At Fed Law

Probably the best place to escape  the consequences of violating federal law is Arizona , or maybe the Gulf of Mexico , but Pennsylvania is certainly making a fine run for the title in these Obama years.

A year ago, Attorney General Eric Holder dismissed complaints against members of the New Black Panther Party for actions taken on
Election Day 2008 at a polling place at 1221 Fairmount St., Philadelphia.

Samir
Shabazz,  and Jerry Jackson dressed in paramilitary style uniforms and
made racially disparaging comments and threats at voters while
brandishing night sticks.

Holder never said why he dropped the charges.

On Friday , Obama’s Justice Department rejected a Republican request to appoint a special counsel to investigate
allegations that the White House offered a job to Congressman Joe Sestak (D-7) if he
would drop out of the Pennsylvania Senate Democratic primary and leave a clear road for incumbent Arlen Specter who was Obama’s pick.

Sestak, who won the primary and is now the party’s nominee, said in February the offer was made which would be a significant violation of federal election laws. He repeated the claim after his victory a week ago.

So why is not the Chief Executive of the United States not interested in executing the laws, the job for which he is charged? Would he have the same response if the allegations were against his political opponents? Does anyone else see a problem with arbitrary enforcement of the laws?

Comcast Customers Surprised By Lost Channels

Comcast without any real warning has begun encrypting the channels that they had led owners of digital-ready TVs to believe would remain accessible to them sans the cheap digital adapter boxes with the even cheaper remotes.

It happened in the Windsor Circle area of Springfield, Pa on Wednesday. Other areas of the town were still getting channels without encryption as of Saturday but don’t expect it to last.

Comcast  had given away the digital adapters for free without an increase in cost but many owners of new TVs declined to hook them up because of the low quality remotes, unnecessary complexity and wire snarls, poorer picture quality and loss of functionality.

Others never bothered ordering them because they had been led by Comcast to believe they were unnecessary for owners of digital-ready TVs.

An explanation for the unexpected action that appeared Comcast.net on Wednesday appears to have been removed. It basically said the new policy was in regard to Comcast concerns about theft of services.

And of course, the tech support people were unable to tell you what had happened and not just due to the language barriers. Comcast apparently didn’t tell them what they did.

People are angry.

Verizon, btw, is offering an equivalent service to Comcast for $50 per month less.

 

Comcast Building Lobby Comcast Customers Surprised By Lost Channels

Comcast Customers Surprised By Lost Channels

Wee Willie Weber R.I.P.

Bill “Wee Willie” Weber died Sunday morning. He was 81. Many of a certain age who grew up in the Philadelphia area will remember him showing afternoon cartoons such as AstroBoy on Channel 17. He was noted disc jockey for WIP in the late 1960s and early 1970s and for WPEN from 1989 to 2005.

He’d been doing a late-morning show, Second Cup of Coffee, on
WHAT (1340 AM).

Mr. Webber was chairman of the Broadcast Pioneers board. He is
survived by his wife, Constance, and children Bill Jr. and Wendy.

R.I.P. Wee Willie and thanks for the memories.

Race, Libertarians And Democrats

Race, Libertarians And Democrats — Rand Paul, who is the GOP senatorial nominee for Kentucky and the son of America’s most famous libertarian, said on Rachel Maddow’s MSNBC show that  business should be allowed to discriminate with regard to how they serve customers which is something prohibited by the Civil Rights Act of 1964 (Section II ).

While he also defended the landmark law in general terms and condemned racial discrimination he was raked over the coals by the wolves who run the establishment media for the sake of the sheep.

Here is something to ponder: throughout America’s history every ethnic group faced discrimination from those on top at the time. This is true of the Irish, the Italians, the Swedes, the Eastern Europeans (upon who was bestowed the slur “honky”,  and, in fact, if you go back far enough was the inspiration for the word “slave”), Japanese, Chinese, Cubans and even the Germans.

All of course persevered and eventually prospered in the face of the bigots in business.

So what made the black experience different? The answer is government. Laws were passed to require that restaurants and hotels and buses have separate accommodations for blacks and whites. Officers of the law ignored with impunity crimes committed against blacks, and even at times joined in their commission. Agents of the state conspired to keep blacks from exercising their votes much less their rights to speak and lobby, often by sanctioning terror.

The Civil Rights Act of 1964 was progress in that it ended these things, but what if it stopped short of prohibiting business owners to be bigots? Maybe blacks would end up with the same stature in small business that they enjoy in professional sports and entertainment which were never really subject to civil rights legal action. Does it occur to anyone that businesses that refuse customers don’t survive?

Something else to ponder: the group that imposed the government oppression of blacks was not the libertarians.

It was the authoritarian, anti-business, big government Democrats. And don’t think those Democrats were just  disgruntled Confederates from the 19th Century.

Progressive hero Woodrow Wilson — the Democrat who gave us the income tax, the IRS and Federal Reserve Board — turned Washington D.C. from a racially integrated city in 1913 to a racially segregated, Jim Crow town.

Fitz Hollings,  the Democrat senator from South Carolina and ally of Bill Clinton, was the one who who started flying the Confederae battle flag over South Carolina’s Capitol to protest the civil rights movement in 1962.

Robert Bryd’s support was integral to the government take over of health care in March. The Democrat senator from West Virginia and one-time Senate Majority leader was once a recruiter for the Ku Klux Klan.

It was Democratic mayors, governors and police chiefs that turned firehoses and police dogs on civil rights marchers in the 1950s and 1960s.

If the Rand Pauls of the world ran things Jim Crow would never have existed, and if they ran things in 1964 Jim Crow  would have ended with a lot less turmoil and heartache, and blacks and whites today would be about as divided as Italians and WASPs are today.

Race, Libertarians And Democrats
Race, Libertarians And Democrats

 

 

Race, Libertarians And Democrats

 

Corbett Kills Subpoena After Stiff Sentence For Cott

Pennsylvania Attorney General Tom Corbett directed that the subpoena to Twitter Inc. for the records of the accounts for bfbarbie and CasablancaPa be dropped after Brett Cott was sentenced this morning for his role in Bonusgate.

Cott, who was an aide to State Rep. Mike Veon, received 21 to 61 months along with fines totaling $11,000 and a requirement to pay $50,000 restitution to the state.

Why pile on Corbett must have figured.

The subpoena was an attempt by Corbett to connect to Cott  statements disparaging the investigation after being found guilty of theft of service, conflict of interest and conspiracy to commit conflict of interest following a six-week trial that ended in March.

The statements would have shown a serious lack of remorse.

Convicted in the same trial were Veon, a Democrat who represented the 14th District from 1985 to 2006, and two other Veon aides.

Bonusgate involved tax money being used to pay political aides for campaign work in the form of large year-end bonuses. Ironically, much of work performed by the staff hacks involved keeping candidates to left of the Democratic Party off the ballot.

Cott, for instance, was reportedly instrumental in keeping Carl Romanelli, a Green Party candidate, off the ballot for U.S. Senate in 2006. He was paid salary of $223,000plus bonuses of over $39,000from 2004 to 2006 and apparently little of his time was spent on constituent services or legislative matters.

The subpoena from the state Investigative Grand Jury was signed by Judge Barry F. Feudal. It was the cause of the moment yesterday as speculation went around the nation that Corbett, who won the Republican gubernatorial nomination Tuesday, was trying to squelch critics or expose whistleblowers.

More irony is that these same “free speech” and privacy advocates outraged over the exposure of a thief have been silent on the matter of George Donnelly who  spent two days in jail  and faces eight years in prison for trying to videotape a confrontation involving federal officers and a man trying to distribute fliers in front of the federal courthouse in Allentown.

Meanwhile, the Senate Democrats, today, passed a financial regulatory bill that allows the government to collect data on any person operating in financial markets at any level, including the collection of personal transaction records from local banks, including customers’ addresses and ATM receipts.

Wonder how many of the Anti-Corbettites are going to express concern.