Really?

I remember playing Kick-the-Can as a child. Little did I know at the time that, if I wanted to play it professionally, I could have been a State Legislator:

House Bill 1661 would prevent any Pennsylvania county from carrying out a court-ordered property reassessment until June 30, 2011. That delay would give the Legislature a chance to do a study of problems that many counties are having with the existing property reassessment system. The study would also deal with whether the state, rather than individual counties, should perform the reassessments. Allegheny County is now facing a court order to reassess.

*Clonk*

Bully on Sen. Pat Vance (R-Cumberland) and Sen. John Eichelberger (R-Blair) for voting against a bill that's so clearly unconstitutional, and shame on Sen. Jim Ferlo (D-Lawrenceville) for voting for a bill just "to keep the process moving."

*Clonk*

It's like letting someone get mugged because "you wanted to see how it played out."

Of course, it's not nearly that noble: everyone in Harrisburg doesn't want to rock the boat... despite not being able to pass a friggin' budget... because raising taxes is tantamount to politically whipping out your love junk in front of preschoolers and the press: if you do it, you're going to get into serious trouble and be tagged forever as a sex offender.

Metaphorically speaking of course.

So here's the thing: you either support the State Constitution and its uniformity clause or you don't and you want to play political games... which apparently includes "kick-the-can".

*Clonk*

And Now...

...There's this item:

Mallo Cups and Smoothies won't be rolling off the Boyer Candy Co.'s production lines for a few days because of a machine fire at the plant in central Pennsylvania.

Plant supervisor Gary Himes said a coconut-roasting machine caught fire about 12:25 a.m. today. The fire was quickly brought under control and nobody was hurt as seven employees got out of the plant safely.

So the obvious question is this: People actually eat Mallo Cups?

I always assumed that they were specifically designed to be picked up by nearsighted old people hours before Halloween and mistakenly given to children as Reese's Peanut Butter Cups, and then later thrown away.

Mallo cups are incredibly disappointing confectionaries, which can only be improved by industrial fire.

Other Things Tom Ridge Didn't Tell Us

In case you didn't know, there's this:

Tom Ridge, the first head of the 9/11-inspired Department of Homeland Security, wasn't keen on writing a tell-all. But in The Test of Our Times: America Under Siege...and How We Can Be Safe Again, out September 1, Ridge says he wants to shake "public complacency" over security... Among the headlines promoted by publisher Thomas Dunne Books: Ridge was never invited to sit in on National Security Council meetings; was "blindsided" by the FBI in morning Oval Office meetings because the agency withheld critical information from him; found his urgings to block Michael Brown from being named head of the emergency agency blamed for the Hurricane Katrina disaster ignored; and was pushed to raise the security alert on the eve of President Bush's re-election....

Other things that Tom Ridge didn't want you to know:

* Eliminating liquids (including shampoo and toothpaste) from carry on bags was done in order to pressure Johnson & Johnson into contributing more money to the GOP.

* The security alert system was originally supposed to only contain two levels: "pee yourself" and "shit yourself."

* Being commissioner for the International Arabian Horse Association makes a person qualified to head the United States Atomic Energy Commission, not FEMA.

* Bigfoot exists, but it's really some guy named "Lenny" from New Jersey.

* Han shot first.

* For 12 minutes on August 23, 2003 George W. Bush was clinically dead during a cabinet meeting and nobody noticed.

* Barack Obama is really a Kenyan Muslim, but was born in Hawaii.

* Your Rice Krispies are secretly telling you to kill your neighbor's dog.

* To prevent yourself from dying from a chemical attack, duct tape should be strategically placed over your mouth and nostrils.

* Michael Chertoff doesn't blink.

A Brief Aside

Oh no, not again:



This year, they threatened to shave off all my hair, dye me pink, and install me as public art if I didn't plug their annual event.

I can't afford the time off from work, people!

G-20 Updates

OK, if anyone tells you that they know what's going to be going on for the G-20, they're lying. Viz:

City planners for the G-20 summit said today they want city residents, workers and businesses to start planning in earnest for the late September summit, but could not say exactly what to plan for...

Details on exactly what streets will be closed in Downtown, Oakland and the North Side on Sept. 24 and 25 have not been released, nor has information for those living Downtown near the David L. Lawrence Convention Center....

The Mayor's office, the County Executive's Office, and the Allegheny Conference are all being mum about everything, understandably. Still, in order to keep security at a max, only the "need-to-know" folks are being told about what's going to happen. I doubt that even many in the Mayor's Office are in that "need-to-know" group.

The only thing that I think that we can assume*, however, is that City government will be pretty much shut down, with only essential personnel showing up:

During the week of the G-20, City Council will move both its Tuesday legislative meeting and its Wednesday standing committee meeting forward by one day, and City Council offices will be closed Sept. 23, 24 and 25 in anticipation of transportation difficulties.

Obviously, City Council doesn't fit that "essential" criteria.

---
* This is a guess. I have no idea what's going on.

And now a Nutritional Interlude...

Oh dammit:

Penn Brewery has closed.

Jack Isherwood, managing principal of Birchmere Capital that owns the North Side business, confirmed in an e-mail that the restaurant "is closed indefinitely while future options are being evaluated," but he declined to elaborate.

Could this get any worse?

Oh double dammit!

Country singer Toby Keith is bringing his popular restaurant chain to SouthSide Works.

Toby Keith's I Love This Bar and Grill is expected to open on the riverfront next to Hofbrauhaus in late 2010, the Soffer Organization announced today.

Surely it couldn't get any worse than this!

Oh crap:

The 15,000-square-foot restaurant will feature live music, HDTV monitors for watching sporting events and Southern-style cooking, including its signature fried bologna sandwich and deep-fried Twinkees.

Oh for fuck's sake! It's like we're trading in a hand crafted, fine mahogany chest for a vending machine sandwich from Wal*Mart.

Now where am I going to get my monthly strudel fix?

Scheiße!

New Healthcare Plans would Provide Democrats with Backbones, Balls

(Reuters) Washington D.C. - High ranking Congressional Democrats have apparently agreed to an amendment to the current health care bills that would provide their party leadership with backbones, spines, and balls.

Speaking on behalf of a joint House-Senate caucus, Senate Majority Leader said that a final compromise will allow the Democrats to push through several other pieces of legislation including National Chocolate Month, Reallocation of Monies under Appropriation Act 5 of 2008, and Charlie Sheen Appreciation Day.

"The Democrats may have sacrificed the core of the proposed health care and climate change bills, but with this new bill, we'll be able to pass issues of vital importance including a reduction of timber tariffs from Canadian importance. Spines and balls will be of vital importance. Vital."

The Democrats' negotiation session was nearly derailed when two dozen invited Republicans threatened to shut down the meeting. Republican Minority Leader Eric Cantor said in a written statement that the proposed amendment was "the first step on the road to socialism."

"If Democrats are allowed to have spines, backbones, or balls, they will trample on the rights of all of those in the minority that did not vote for them. Why should a majority of people have the right to rule over a country, just because more people voted for them? ... That's akin to socialism."

Democratic Leadership in the House say that they will take Representative Cantor's comments into consideration, and will probably remove the backbone and balls provisions of the amendment.

The White House spokesman Robert Gibbs did not comment on the ongoing negotiations, except to say that the President supported any bill that advanced the cause of health care reform even if it sets back the cause of health care reform.

No word as to whether the proposed amendment includes "cajones".

iPothole

So ADB's doppelganger The Surly Inebriated Manager sent a quick little note this morning:

Hey, check out the new iBurgh App for the iPhone. Pretty sweet!

Tim McNulty has the non-fanboi story:

An application called iBurgh became available via Apple's iTunes store Saturday night that allows residents to snap iPhone photos of problems such as potholes and graffiti and send them to the city's 311 complaint system, embedded with Global Positioning System data with the problem's exact location. The free application, designed by YinzCam Inc. of Squirrel Hill, will issue the reports to city departments for review, just as the city's current 311 complaint phone line does...

Checking out SIM's screenshots, it does in fact seem to be pretty sweet, if simplistic as far as iPhone apps go. It's good start to be sure, although a more useful app would be a PDA, streamlined version of the City's webpage, without all the needless flashing and blinking and Darlene Harris.

The real test, of course, is going to be how well the human end of this experiment performs, and whether 311 will be as responsive as it is to telephone, web, or friend-of-councilperson submissions.

Actually, what I'd really like to know (and what would be fascinating to find out) is where these iPhone generated complaints are coming from. This could be a perfect tool for the migration patterns of the elusive Yinzer-Hipster Douchebag (or "Yipzter-bag"). It'll sure beat setting traps of PBR out on Penn Avenue during the Unblurred events.

Bottom 9 Health Care Lies

My email box, facebook account, twitter feed and carrier pigeon roost is filled with forwards outlining the top five lies about Health Care reform:

Lie #1: President Obama wants to euthanize your grandma!!!

Lie #2: Democrats are going to outlaw private insurance and force you into a government plan!!!

Lie #3: President Obama wants to implement Soviet-style rationing!!!

Lie #4: Obama is secretly plotting to cut senior citizens' Medicare benefits!!!

Lie #5: Obama's health care plan will bankrupt America!!!

Slightly less forwarded are the Bottom 8 Health Care Lies:

Bottom Lie #10: The CIA will now be able to give AIDS to the rest of the blacks it missed in the 1980s.

Bottom Lie #9: It will turn Jesus gay.

Bottom Lie #8: Abortions will be made mandatory for everyone who is not pregnant.

Bottom Lie #7: Grandma will be harvested for her organs.

Bottom Lie #6: [Unintelligible due to shouting]

Bottom Lie #5: It turns you into a secret Kenyan Marxist Fascist muslin.

Bottom Lie #4: Americans will be forcibly turned into Europeans, and be made to let children drink and vacation for four weeks a year.

Bottom Lie #3: Medicare and Medicaid will be taken over and run by the Government.

Bottom Lie #2: Dr. House will be mandated to diagnose everything as Lupus.

Bottom Lie #1: There are only 9 Bottom 9 Health Care Lies.

I expect to see these brought up on Fox News any moment now.

Two Minutes Hate

Please include in your daily Two Minutes Hate State Senator Jim Ferlo:

The city of Pittsburgh's development arm plans to get back in the business of backing beer, after the Urban Redevelopment Authority board voted today to lend $300,000 to an investor looking to buy Penn Brewing Co. and return its brewing and bottling operations to the base of Troy Hill...

Because the transfer of the building isn't final, URA board member Jim Ferlo, a state senator from Highland Park, voted against the loan. The other four board members voted for it.

Why does Jim Ferlo hate beer?

Ben Franklin once said that "Beer is proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy." Obviously, by voting against this loan, Jim Ferlo doesn't want us to be happy and is thwarting the will of God. People that are thwarting the will of God are in league with the Devil.

Ergo, Jim Ferlo wants you to be unhappy and go to hell.

Remember that on election day: a vote for Jim Ferlo means that you want to burn in hell for all eternity.