And Now...

WKRP Turkey Drop - Watch more Videos at Vodpod.

Happy Thanksgiving!

That Which May Not Be Named

PittGirl or Virginia or Ginny or whatever nom de blog she wants to go by now made an excellent point about lawyers and the suing off of pantalones and what not and so forth. But, still here are some points that I feel to be salient... apropos of nothing in particular:

* It's amazing how much information can come out after you feel that you are absolutely secure in a position. We have discovered, for example, that Clarence Thomas has uncontrollable flatulence.

* Certain decisions are not made lightly, without great thought and reflection. It would be hard to believe that life changing decisions could be made over the course of only three weeks. This is why it took so long for the Obamas to choose a puppy.

* I remember Michael Diven getting criticized at one point for showing a campaign picture of his "happy family," which, if I recall correctly turned out to be his fiancee and nephew.

* The City of Pittsburgh (or at least Pittsburghers) is notorious for not talking out loud about giant elephants in the room, choosing instead to whisper quietly. It is a small City. Things happen. For example: we know you're bald Jim M.

* Not denying is not a denial. Saying that you're not going to comment is a comment. Denying that you won't deny that will not comment, means you won't comment... I think.

* Shoes drop in pairs, or in racks if you've happened to plow into a Payless.

* Some things are more important than governing. Edward VIII gave up his kingdom for "the woman he loved;" Richard III gave up his for a horse. To each his own.

* One can pretty much be a magistrate for life.

As I said, irrespective of nothing in particular.

Whither the ACCD Meeting

I've been busy the last several months doing end/beginning of the Federal fiscal year junk, so I only got around to realizing that I couldn't find my invitation to the Allegheny Conference on Community Development's annual meeting, which we narrated in 2005, 2006, and 2007. We didn't do it in 2008, though as we couldn't stand another damned musical number about the Bessemer process, or some such nonsense.

It's a pity that we couldn't make it last year as, according to my sources, this year's annual meeting was/is not open to the public. It's a further pity, as the region just suffered through the greatest spate of good publicity it's ever had in recent memory, and it would have made the event much more exciting.

That and I do miss seeing Larry Dunn.

Anywho, I can only assume that because they are meeting in secret, the Conference is practicing some sort of weird blasphemous ritual designed to pacify the blind idiot Elder God of the region, while Murry Gerber dances around its throne wailing about declining educational standards to the tune of a demonic flute. They're probably involved in cannibalism and Powerpoint slides too.*

Ugh, Powerpoint. Glad I didn't have to sit through that again.

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*Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Pittsburgh R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn

A Bureaucrat's Aside Re: Prevailing Wages (pt. 2)

So, if the City ponies up $600,000 to the Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh, would they be subject to prevailing wage requirements as well?

I suppose it depends on when they try to enact legislation, I suppose.

5 on 4

So I saw this here picture in the P-G

and I said to myself, "Self: which of those councilpersons have universities or large numbers of university students residing in their districts and are also going to be in office come January?"

The answer didn't really surprise me.

So if I were trying to stop the Tuition Tax, I'd want to start a 4 year, accredited university in Ricky Burgess's District, like, tomorrow.

A Bureaucrat's Aside Re: Prevailing Wages

I find it interesting that this story and this story broke in the same week.

I wonder what impact the former is going to have on resolving the latter, or, more fundamentally, if there's even a grocery store out there willing to go into the Hill District and also willing to pay prevailing wages.

Looks like this could be a case of unintended consequences, n'at.

Ravenstahl Proposes City Budget Gap to be Plugged with "Magic"

On the heals of its rejection by the Intergovernmental Cooperation Authority, Pittsburgh Mayor Luke Ravenstahl has announced that he will fund the City's budget through a combination of tax increases, service fees, and magic.

"We've tapped every source of funds that are available," said the Mayor speaking to reporters following the ICA's board decision, "now it's time to conjure up some new ones. I'm proposing a 3% spell tax, along with an excise tax on potions, and a Wizard licensing fee, along with chasing rainbows to find pots of leprechaun gold."

The Mayor also promised to locate a unicorn ride it to slay a dragon, and steal the dragon's horde. (A representative from Ms. Buchanan's office did not return calls for this story.)

Dark magic has long been used to support so-called "supply side" tax schemes at the nation level, but this is the first reported use of magic at a local level.

Councilman Ricky Burgess, called the plan "unworkable" and proposed a witch surcharge fee in place of the Mayor's proposal and a expedition to the lost city of Atlantis to make up for the nearly $15 funding gap.

Professor John Levi, chair of the University of Pittsburgh Economics Department described both Councilman Burgess' and the Mayor's plans as "infeasible."

"A declining City like Pittsburgh needs to reduce the level of services it has to provide and try to find some way to grow tax revenue in a sustainable way, without relying on phantom sources of funds. Plus magic doesn't exist."

When reached for comment, a representative for Magician's Union Local 101 promptly vanished in a puff of smoke.

PG+ Tour

In case you missed it, the Post-Gazette was running a free promotional PG+ tour today. Here's a sneak peek:

Database Error: Unable to connect to the database:Could not connect to MySQL

Ah. OK, let's try that again:

jtablesession::Store Failed
DB function failed with error number 145
Table './plus_joom/jos_session' is marked as crashed and should be repaired SQL=INSERT INTO `jos_session` ( `session_id`,`time`,`username`,`gid`,`guest`,`client_id` ) VALUES ( '8pdce383e66rahqcn59lkkq3p4','1258392839','','0','1','0' )

I see.

Never mind then.

*Clonk*

And the can gets kicked down the road again:

Allegheny County will appeal a Common Pleas Court order to complete a reassessment of all property over the next four years, County Executive Dan Onorato announced this afternoon.

Mr. Onorato said the appeal would give the state Legislature time to deal with his call for a statewide solution to assessment problems. He appealed to the Legislature after the state Supreme Court earlier this year tossed out the county's decision to assess property at its 2002 value, establishing a base-year system similar to that used in most counties.

Mr. Onorato said the assessment system has to be fixed on a statewide basis rather than county by county. A bill already approved by the state House would provide a two-year moratorium on new assessments in all county while the Legislature studies the issue and tries to come up with a new system.

Now, I'm not disagreeing with our County CPA that the Pennsylvania Property Assessment system is as ridiculous and inequitable as a 14 foot drinking fountain for little people.* It doesn't make sense, when the State Constitution calls for uniformity, that Murrysville can have a base year system, but Monroeville cannot. Indeed, this is going to have to be something that the legislature needs to work out and set right.

Candidate for Governor Danny-boy, can't have the burden of actually undertaking a court mandated reassessment, however. Any reassessment will inexorably lead to higher taxes in the County, which would spell doom for his campaign. Yes, better to letter the judges and representatives in Harrisburg take the fall than to sack up and show some initiative for once, lest the road to the Governor's chair be paved with hard decisions.

Of course, this isn't really leadership on Danny's part -- it's politics.

And the can gets kicked down the road to the next guy.

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* Let this simile roll around in your imagination for awhile.

A Bureaucrat's Aside Re: Bonusgate (Part II)

Wouldn't it be easier for Tom Corbett to indict everyone in Harrisburg and just figure out what they did later? There's enough of them; statistically, they're all guilty of something.

Alternatively, anybody want to bet that Auditor General (and potential opponent for the Governorship) Jack Wagner releases a competing report saying that entire State House is grossly mismanaged and inefficient, just to show up Corbett?

(Of course, where would anyone get an idea like that?)