USS Olympia Vs Stimulus Signs And Yankees

USS Olympia Vs Stimulus Signs And Yankees

Historical apathy is threatening to do what the Spanish Navy could not and that is send the USS Olympia to a watery grave.

The cruiser which is berthed at Penn’s Landing in Philadelphia was the flagship of Admiral Dewey’s fleet at the Battle of Manila Bay on May 1, 1898 during the Spanish American War and from which he uttered the famous command “You May Fire When You Are Ready, Gridley”

It is the oldest steel-hulled ship afloat, and is an important record of 19th century transitional technology.

The owner of the ship, the Independence Seaport Museum, says it cannot afford the $20 million-plus to maintain it.

While $20 million is a lot, spending it on the ship would provide honest American jobs to save an treasure than could never be recovered if it should be lost. It would certainly be less of a waste than spending $20 million in federal money on propaganda signs for the “Stimulus” Act; or $20 million to repair a minor league ballpark in Lackawanna County for the New York Yankees, an institution that wouldn’t blink at paying that plus 50 percent for single-season’s work from a third-baseman.

Worst comes to worst maybe they can move it down the river to Delaware County which has managed to find $30 million for a soccer stadium and talk the state into chipping in another $47 million.

A nation that forgets its history is not going to last. Those in the 19th century understood this.

USS Olympia Vs Stimulus Signs And Yankees

 

Obama To Mandate AIDS Integration In Prison?

South Carolina is expecting a lawsuit by the Obama administration aimed at ending its policy of segregating prisoners with AIDS that has been in place since 1998.

The administration claims the policy prevents infected prisoners “from participating in activities and jobs of their choosing”; is unconstitutional and that the separation “stigmatizes” prisoners with AIDS.

Since the policy was put in place there has just been one transmission of HIV/AIDS to an uninfected prisoner


Lingenfelter Off Ballot In Pa-8

The Republican’s road to returning as the party representing Pennsylvania’s 8th District in Congress got a little easier after a successful petition challenge knocked conservative independent Tom Lingenfelter off the ballot, Thursday.

Commonwealth Court Judge Dan Pellegrini ruled that 769 signatures on the petition were invalid because they were obtained by circulators who lived outside the district.

Lingenfelter attorney Larry Otter argued that the Department of Stateinstructions simply said circulators “must be a qualified elector of theCommonwealth of Pennsylvania.”Pellegrini, however, said a ruling by the state Supreme Court that they must be district residents took precedence over the Department of State directions.

Among those circulating the petitions for Lingenfelter were two interns working for Democrat incumbent Patrick Murphy. The Republican in the race is former Congressman Mike Fitzpatrick, who Murphy beat by 1,518 votes in 2006.
 
Lingenfelter received more than 5,000 as a third-party candidate in 2008, in the race that saw Murphy easily win reelection with 57 percent of the vote over Republican Tom Manion.

Murphy, an Iraq war veteran, has claimed to be a moderate. With Obama in office, however, he has shown himself not just to be an extreme social liberal, with his support for abortion and gun control, but a fiscal one as well supporting Obamacare and the stimulus. He has voted with Nancy Pelosi 99 percent of the time.

Lingenfelter remains on the ballot in 143rd District State House race.

Hat tip to Phillyburbs.com

Chinese Cause Comeback For King Coal

Chinese demand is causing a mini-boom in Luzerne County, Pa. anthracite coal. The Chinese have imported 920,010 tons of metallurgical coal — or coal used in metal refining rather than for fuel — in the first quarter which is a 42 percent increase over a year earlier.

The most valuable metallurgical coal is anthracite. Pennsylvania, especially Northeast Pennsylvania,  is by far the leading source of it.

The Chinese need the coal for steelmaking and have turned to Pennsylvania.  Vietnam, their traditional source of anthracite, is cutting them off to use it to produce electricity for itself.

For the unemployed thinking about finding a job loading 16 tons like in the song, most of the coal today is acquired via steam shovels and surface mining. It employs about 500 people today compared to 100,000 in the 1940s.

Hat tip to Dorothy Hayer.

Mosque Joke Illustrates Pseudo-Tolerance

Mosque Joke Illustrates Pseudo-Tolerance — Below is a nice pointed little joke circulating around the internet illustrating the pseudo-tolerance of those who want to rule our lives. Thank you Cathy Craddock and feel free to forward.

I recently applied for a building permit for a nice new house.

It was going to be 100 ft tall and 400 ft wide with 9 gun turrets
at various heights and windows all over the place and a very loud
outside entertainment sound system. It would have parking for
200 cars and I was going to paint it dark green with pink trim.

The City Council told me to go to hell.

So I sent in the application again; but this time I called it a “Mosque”.

Work starts on Monday…

Mosque Joke Illustrates Pseudo-Tolerance

Judge Told To Unseal Orie Info

The state Supreme Court, yesterday, ordered the trial judge to unseal documents relating to the cases of state Sen. Jane Clare Orie (R-40)  and her sister, Janine Orie.


The Ories have been charged in Allegheny County  with theft of service and other crimes relating to the allegation that they improperly assigned state employees to work on the successful election campaign of their sister Joan Orie Melvin to the state Supreme Court last fall.

The 40th District includes part of Allegheny County.

The District Attorney is Stephen Zappala, a Democrat and a political enemy of the Ories. Among the documents the Supreme Court ordered Common Pleas Court Judge John A. Zottola to release was a motion filed by then Orie attorney Jerry McDevitt asking that the District Attorney’s Office be prohibited from investigating Orie because of conflicts of interest.


Zottola sealed the records claiming he was following the directions of the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court said Zottola misinterpreted them.

The petition to unseal the records was filed April 16 — nine days after the charges were levied —  by the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette and WPXI-TV.

Zappala has an interesting connection to the Luzerne County cash-for-kids scandal. His brother Gregory was co-owner of the PA Child Care and Western PA Child Care incarceration facilities where the youths were sent in return for kickbacks to Luzerne County judges.

Gregory Zappala has not been connected to the kickbacks although his partner Robert Powell pleaded guilty in 2009 to failing to report a felony,

Gregory’s and Stephen’s father is former Supreme Court Judge Stephen Zappala Sr. The business address for Western PA Child Care was actually the home of Zappala Sr.

Inherent Decency Of The Tea Partyers

About a dozen persons filled the upstairs room, Tuesday night, at Old Original Nick’s Roast Beef in Springfield for the meeting of the Delaware County Patriots.

The Patriots are the Tea Party group for the suburban Philadelphia county.

There were singles and couples, and ages ranged from 23 to seasoned citizens. The meeting was for mostly getting acquainted.  Attendees were asked their reasons for getting involved. Almost all said it was a  desire to find like-minded people and to save the country.

About two-thirds of the way through, after the beer and other drinks and delicious sandwiches, one fellow suggested a prayer be said, which is a rather unusual time to have a meeting prayer.  He didn’t want to say it, though, so the fellow sitting across from him volunteered.

And what he prayed was for the Lord to watch our nation and our leaders — and he pointedly noted all our leaders to no objections — and he asked for it in Jesus’ name.

So much for the claims of hate.

The Delco Patriots have a website and a Facebook page. The group’s larger meetings have been held at Kings Mills banquet hall in Aston.

Nick’s has locations in Springfield and Philadelphia. Rush Limbaugh has been known to enjoy a meal there.

Inherent Decency Of The Tea Partyers

Inherent Decency Of The Tea Partyers

Joe “Way To Step In It” Sestak And Mayor Bloomberg

Joe Sestak, the Democrat’s pick to replace Arlen Specter as senator from Pennsylvania, has been dogged by claims that he harbors sympathies to radical Islamic organizations.

So to show that he is a true-blue maverick independent, the Admiral brought New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg to Philadelphia, yesterday, to endorse him.

What Bloomberg ended up doing was answering a lot of questions regarding his endorsement of  the Islamic Victory Mosque at the site of the 9/11 attacks.

Way to go Joe. It’s almost like getting the CAIR executive director to write a defense of your appearance at a CAIR rally.

Site Flunks Delco GOP On Liberty

LibertyIndex.com run by Bob Guzzardi of Bryn Mawr is a fascinating site full of useful information where each bill passed by the Pennsylvania legislature since 2003 is analyzed with regard as to how it effects the liberty of the residents of the Commonwealth. The legislators are then graded on their support for liberty based on their votes.

The site defines The Liberty Index rating as an  “assessment of whether a piece oflegislation advances or restrains individual liberty,particularly, economicfreedom to spend your money the way you think best.”

The highest grade for a Delaware County legislator is the B given to State Rep. Nick Miccarelli (R-162).  He is followed by Rep. Steve Barrar (R-160) who gets a C+ and Tom Killion (R-168) who gets a C-.

Then it gets pretty sad.

House Republicans Bill Adolph (165) gets a D+; Mario Civera (164) gets a D; and Nick Micozzie gets an F-.

House Democrats Bryan Lentz (161). Greg Vitali (166) , Thaddeus Kirkland (159), and Roger Waters (191) get F- leaving  Robert C. Donatucci (185) to shine with a F.

It’s even worse on the Senate side. Republicans Dominic Pileggi (9) and Ted Erickson (26), and Democrat Anthony H. Williams (8) get F-. Democrat Daylin Leach (17)  for some strange reason gets a mere F. That’s definitely a mistake.

In fairness to the Senate Republicans, the index heavily weighs votes concerning appropriations and if the state had a governor other than Ed “Spend For My Friends” Rendell, I suspect their grades would be higher. Pileggi should get some credit for fighting Eddie as hard as he did to keep spending from being even worse.

And kudos to Guzzardi for some heavy lifting and excellent work.

Joe “XXXXXX” Sestak Said Yes To Teachers

Congressman Joe “XXXXXX” Sestak was among the 247 representatives, 245 of which were Democrats, who voted yes, Aug. 10, on the XXXXXX Act of XXXX.

Really, that’s the name of the bill for which he voted. If you really want a good laugh — or  maybe cry — H.R. 1586 terms itself:  An act to modernize the air traffic control system, improve the safety,reliability, and availability of transportation by air in the UnitedStates, provide for modernization of the air traffic control system,reauthorize the Federal Aviation Administration, and for other purposes.

What it ended up doing was shovel $10 billion to the teachers unions while cutting money that had been budgeted for defense and energy research.

And, no the bill did not end up taxing the bonuses of CEOs of firms getting TARP ballots despite an attempt to do so.

And as far as I can see not much if anything went to modernizing the air traffic control system.

The Republicans voting for the bill were Michael “The Usual Suspect” Castle of Delaware and Joseph “Being From New Orleans Cuts Him A Lot Of Slack” Cao of Louisiana.