William Lawrence Sr Omnibit 1-1-15
Good New Year’s News
Matthew Brouillette of Commonwealth Foundation informs us that for the first time in seven years new charter school applications — there are 40 of them — are under review in Philadelphia.
This gives a bit of hope to those poor kids stuck on waiting lists.
He notes that in October, legislation was passed in October allowing thousands of more kids to attend a school of their parents choice.
You think school choice is bad thing? Then just imagine if you had to use the supermarket/electrician/lawyer/doctor the government picked for you.
School choice is a good thing just as being able to choose your supermarket its.
Brouillette also tells us some not-so-good New Year’s news. Seven Pennsylvania government union PACs have shoveled $7.6 million to candidates in 2013-14. This is an increase of 53 percent in just two years.
Brouillette notes that this money comes from dues collected at taxpayer expense as per a corrupt law.
Good New Year’s News
Turnpike Tolls Rise, Happy New Year
Happy New Year. Pennsylvania Turnpike tolls are going to rise 5 percent for all customers on Sunday, Jan. 4.
Obviously one needs money to maintain a transportation infrastructure.
Just as obviously a lot of the money — maybe even most — collected by the federal government and Commonwealth of Pennsylvania in the guise of doing such is not.
High salaries for bureaucrats and inflated costs for construction should not be considered part of maintaining an infrastructure.
They should be considered corruption. Our lives would be richer and freer with less corruption.
End things like prevailing wage, which inflate the cost of public construction by about 20 percent.
Kill the scandal-ridden Pennsylvania Turnpike Commission and move its responsibilities to the slightly less scandal-ridden PennDOT.
For that matter, kill the turnpike system altogether. Make the roads freeways. Traffic bottlenecks are removed, salaries for toll-collectors disappear as does the cost of maintaining toll booths or EZ Pass lanes, and we no longer have to worry about how the revenue is going to be collected when adding ingresses and egresses. This means more ingresses and, especially, egresses which means much greater transportation efficiency.
Hat tip, Bob Guzzardi.
Turnpike Tolls Rise, Happy New Year
Physician Sentence Riddle Answer et al
In each blank in the following you have to place the same letters in the same order to make a sentence that is both grammatical and sensible:
The ______ physician was ______ to operate because he had _____ .
The answer is: The notable surgeon was not able to operate because he had no table.
Physician Sentence Riddle Answer
William Lawrence Sr Omnibit 12-31-14
William Lawrence Sr Omnibit 12-31-14
Auld Lang Syne in English literally means “old long since”.
Delco Support Police Rally
The Delaware County Patriots report that a Delco support police rally will be held from 3 to 5 p.m., Sunday, Jan. 4 on both sides of Baltimore Pike in Springfield and Clifton Heights.
There will be fundraising from 2 to 3 p.m. in front of Millers Ale House to benefit the families of murdered New York Police officers Rafael Ramos and Wenjian Liu. T-shirts will be sold and donations collected.
Millers address is 18 Baltimore Pike, Springfield, Pa. 19064 for those who want something to plug into their GPS navigation system.
Information about parking and other matters can be found here.
Delco Support Police Rally
William Lawrence Sr Omnibit 12-30-14
William Lawrence Sr Omnibit 12-30-14
Estivation is the opposite of hibernation. It’s when the bears open their eyes, yawn, stretch and get up.
North Korea Not Behind Sony Hack?
Sony Pictures computer network was the subject of a massive security breach on Nov. 24 and reams of embarrassing documents were leaked to the public.
Something calling itself the Guardians of Peace using the ironic acronym GOP took credit on Dec. 9 and demanded that the studio cancel the Seth Rogan comedy “The Interview” that was scheduled to be released Christmas Day.
The film features the killing of North Korean communist dictator Kim Jong-un. North Korea, while praising the hacking, denied responsibility.
On Dec. 11, the GOP released hacked data describing Sony projects aimed at stifling piracy of its products. On Dec. 13, it released data exposing investigations that Sony was bribing Chinese officials.
On Dec. 16, the GOP sent out a notice implying there will be terrorist attacks at theaters showing the movie.
Sony pulls the film on Dec. 17 and announces that it has “no further release plans for the film.” President Obama makes a televised statement that night saying that Sony shouldn’t have done it and should have checked with him.
Sony CEO Michael Lynton — a one-percenter and a personal friend and major supporter of Obama — responds to the President on Dec. 19 saying “I did reach out. We definitely spoke to a senior advisor in the White House to talk about the situation. The White House was certainly aware of the situation.” He also says the studio plans to get the movie to the public.
Also, on Dec. 19, the FBI makes it official that North Korea was behind the hacking. It had been leaked to the media two days earlier that North Korea was suspected.
On Christmas Eve, Sony makes “The Interview” accessible on streaming services and gives it a limited theatrical release the next day.
It gets mediocre reviews.
And that gets us to today. Computer security experts are saying the evidence as to who is the cause for all the fuss now indicates a disgruntled employee working with hackers for piracy groups. They are wondering why the FBI was so quick to release a statement pinning the actions on North Korea.
“When the FBI made the announcement so soon after the initial hack was unveiled, everyone in the [cyber] intelligence community kind of raised their eyebrows at it, because it’s really hard to pin this on anyone within days of the attack,” said Kurt Stammberger of Norse.
Errata Security‘s Robert Graham goes so far as to call the FBI evidence “nonsense.”
The Taia Global security firm, says a linguistic analysis of the hacker’s messages indicates Russian speakers rather than Korean.
For the record, the FBI is sticking to its North Korea claim. But the quickness of its conclusion and the doubts of non-government experts do make one go hmmmm.
For what it’s worth, our favorite conspiracy theory is that Obama is doing this as payback to Lynton to help him pump up an otherwise forgettable film.
Regardless he should be impeached. Even Biden would do a better job and that’s saying a lot.
North Korea Not Behind Sony Hack?
Blaine Amendments Hurt Children
Lindsey Burke of the Heritage Foundation and Breitbart News’ Jarrett Stepman have released a peer-reviewed article in with the Journal of School Choice outlining the impact of how obsolete laws inspired by vehement anti-Catholicism are impacting the school choice movement and leaving millions of children stuck in bad schools or with bad teachers.
The laws were passed in the late 19th century and are generally known as “Blaine Amendments” after Maine Congressman and Speaker of the House James G. Blaine who promoted them.
A type of Blaine Amendment is on the books in 38 states including Pennsylvania.
Hat tip Tom Coniglia
Blaine Amendments Hurt Children
William Lawrence Sr Omnibit 12-29-14
William Lawrence Sr Omnibit 12-29-14