Hogs -- Trib and the pay raise for state reps and state senators

In Harrisburg, the hogs slop themselves. See the comments.

Pandas and Parenthood

Baby Panda lives to be one-day old in DC.

Photos and more insights to come soon.

When in China, we got to visit the Pandas in a special Panda reserve. This year, our favorites were the "RED PANDAS."

City's slip in population isn't all bad news -- sugar coated news spin

City's slip in population isn't all bad news... But lately, he's been unable to get the city to rein in nuisance bars near his home. 'I'd like to live in a small city with some normalcy,' he said....

Exactly.

If we have a small city feel -- why do we have the big city burdens?

If we have the quaint burgh attitude -- why do we have the big-city headaches?

If we have that kwel neighborhood character -- why do we have the overspending of a metropolitan glitter that isn't helpful, isn't prudent, and isn't going to spread the neighborhood character?

The one's in power in the past have been trying to make Pittsburgh what it isn't. We have to be what we are. We have to be ourselves. We have to be with comfort when we look into the mirror.

I'm not saying we can't aspire to greatness, work to solve the cancer problems and have our kids flourish.

We are not Disney. We are not a beach town. We are not the Big Apple. We are not just about entertainment.

Our needs and our wants have not been on the same page between those who live here and those who have been getting elected.

Huge casino perils Downtown's profile - Think Again

Huge casino perils Downtown's profile
Planners worry how building could change the look of cityscape

Imagine dropping a building nearly the size of a Wal-Mart Supercenter on the Downtown riverfront. Or in the heart of the Golden Triangle. Or near the David L. Lawrence Convention Center.

Think again!
Rather than the massive new building as a casino, I think we should sell the new, under-performing, high-cost to maintain, convention center, owned by the SEA (Stadium and Exibition Authority) and make it the casino.

Sell it now, or soon.

That's the deal for Pittsburgh. The casino operators can re-tool it for the slots and allow for business to flow with the conventions.

Turn the Convention Center into the Slots Parlor. In a way, this is a move to privatize the convention center and get it off the backs of the government officials.

Face it, the convention center and the casino are going to be either friends or foe on each and every convention that comes to town. Put the ownership under the same, white elephant, sloped roof.

Suspect mentions missing girl in blog

This is one way to drive traffic to your web site.

Suspect mentions missing girl in blog - PittsburghLIVE.com Suspect mentions missing girl in blog

MINNEAPOLIS -- The convicted sex offender accused of kidnapping two children in Idaho wrote about a missing Minnesota girl on his Weblog, and investigators are now looking into whether he might have had anything to do with her disappearance.

I want the authorities to check every lead. But, some in power seem to be going hog-wild about the internet and computers.

In other news, from Friday's PG, we learn of another bone-headed mistake from a school bus driver. The kicker at the very end of the story, police seized his computer.

Driver who forgot kids is charged

July 8, 2008, Jonathan D. Silver, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

A Kennedy school bus driver was arrested yesterday on charges that he left two 4-year-olds with special needs belted into their seats for more than two hours in his driveway and never dropped them off at school.

Milton Kappert Sr., 65, was released on his own recognizance after being arraigned before McKees Rocks District Judge Mary Ann Cercone.

"Stupid mistake," Kappert said, shaking his head as he sat in Cercone's office.

Allegheny County police charged him with two counts each of reckless endangerment and endangering the welfare of children.

Police noted that the temperature was in the 80s on June 30, and the children's parents said in interviews with the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette that the youngsters were sweaty or excessively thirsty upon returning home.

In an affidavit, detectives said Kappert picked up the children to take them to the Early Learning Institute in Kennedy but they never arrived.

Kappert needed to go to the bathroom, but decided he could not wait for a line of buses unloading students at the school so he went to his home on Ellwood Court nearby, police said.

Kappert told police he left the children belted into their seats with their windows opened about six inches and went into his house. He spent five minutes in the bathroom, took a five-minute phone call and "then forgot that the children were still on the bus and went into his 'normal afternoon routine.' "

Police said Kappert told them he did not realize his error until 2:10 p.m., when the son of Samantha Ray of Ingram walked into his house. The other boy, the son of Leanne McClean of Robinson, was still in his seat.

Kappert works for the Montour School District, which provides transportation services to the Early Learning Institute's Kennedy facility. He said he has driven a bus for eight years and is a former electrician.

The district has put Kappert on unpaid leave pending an internal investigation.

Kappert's attorney, Michael Santicola, said police seized Kappert's computer.

Make no mistakes, please. One can't agree with wrong-headed actions, especially against children. I wonder, why in the world did the police take his computer.
As a footnote, it is great to have back-ups, off site no less. It is great to have services such as Gmail and Blogger.com. Then the data and applications are off site and can't be "taken" by "greedy authorities" for little reason.
I hope to learn that this a bus driver gave the police plenty of other, valid reasons for the taking of his computer. Tell me those reasons, please. Or, what might they be?

Two additional swim pools open - splashing again in Mount Washington and in a RAD park

City to open pools in Mount Washington, Perry North ... businessman Ed Dunlap agreed to pay for operation of Ream Pool, and the city shifted sales tax funding to cover Riverview Pool...

State Rep. Harry Readshaw, D-Carrick, had sought to identify state funding for McBride Pool in Lincoln Place. But Ashley said that funding hasn't materialized.

Riverview Pool is in a RAD park. The four RAD parks should not have seen their closing as the money flows from a different source.
RAD funding is a tangle that needs to be cleared and understood. In my humble opinion, the RAD tax and the RAD board and the RAD operations need to be moderized and put into the junk heap in favor of a new, democractic, Pittsburgh Park District.

In 2004 we had Save Our Summer. Plus, the 2004 efforts saw a big donation come from Paul Renee to open the REAM pool after it was closed for two or more months. That was a band-aid.

Now we have another gracious citizen giving money to open REAM again. Well done there. But, we don't have much beyond the band-aid approach.

Pay raises by the numbers: Who gets how much

The rich get richer:

Pay raises by the numbers: Who gets how much Cabinet officials: Currently ranges between $112,013 and $124,458, would rise to $153,085, or up to 37 percent, for all 18 officials.

Can you name any of the 18 officials in the cabnet? There are 18! Name em, please.

Diamonds dropped in London

SI.com - Olympics - IOC drops baseball, softball from 2012 Olympics Baseball and softball were tossed out of the Olympic program for the 2012 London Games -- the first sports cut from the Summer Games in 69 years.

Baseball and softball will be played in 2008. So, the the sports live for now in terms of Olympics still.
I never liked seeing baseball as an Olympic sport. Good bye. See you in October.
This summer, being the trend setters that we are, it must have been news to the IOC voters that my boys, (ages 7 and 10) have yet to pick up a baseball throughout the summer. The gloves and balls sit here and don't get used. We go in waves with various activities, and the baseball wave has yet to hit in 2005.
I don't have a problem with baseball. I just don't think it is well suited as an Olympic sport. Softball is fine, if both the men and women were to play.

I don't think that this move is a "big mistake" as does Lasorda.

I do think that baseball and softball should be sports in the Senior Olympics and in the Keystone Games. But spare us of those sports in the Olympics. I love scholastic baseball and softball too.

Figure what would have happened if NYC got the Olympics in 2012 and the IOC pulls baseball from the line-up. They were boasting that Yankee Stadium would have been used as a venue for baseball in 2012. Hillary and company should have offered to use Yankee Stadium as a boxing venue. They might have been backing the wrong horse, so to speak.

Baseball also got nailed because of the steriod scandals, as well as the other drugs too I guess. Doping is a big, big topic in international sports and baseball has been lax to the highest degree. Pittsburgh is keen on "between the lines" and the other uses of drugs in the game as well. Those behaviors don't wash in the global world.

Furthermore, the USA Baseball team has been much worse than the USA Hockey squads. Plus some of the best ballplayers in central America don't play internationally either. The sport didn't cover all the bases with a strong line-up, so to speak.

The downside, no other sports were put onto the agenda as official medal sports. I figure that the UK pressures will get rugby and cricket as demonstration sports.

The most damage, however, comes to the entire process. The openness of the vote was absent. The bull-headed meeting organizers wanted to put this just to a voice vote and the IOC booed. The vote totals were not announced. The movement has plenty to learn and understand in terms of democratic leadership. Many of the IOC members felt skunked at the way the meeting fell apart as sports were being considered.

Vast rightwing conspiracy exposed!

I'm wondering what some of you might make of what follows. It could be an interesting launch article.

If nothing else, there are some interesting talking points about the reach and viability of the net. And, with The TRIB such a big role in this, it is worthy of peeking at, even if only for a good chuckle.

WorldNetDaily: Vast rightwing conspiracy exposed!
That was the gist of Hillary's "vast rightwing conspiracy."
The 'unregulated' Internet
What made the whole system work was the Internet. The report singled out the World Wide Web as a special threat, devoting an entire section to the subject. It decried the Net as a perfect conduit for Scaife's 'stream' of 'conspiracy commerce.' The report stated:

The Internet has become one of the major and most dynamic modes of communication. The Internet can link people, groups and organizations together instantly. Moreover, it allows an extraordinary amount of unregulated data and information to be located in one area and available to all.

State argues against closing air wing -- and I'm starting to look for the pointers to all the details. Help hoped for, please.

State argues against closing air wing Top officials tell base-closing panel Pentagon is wrong

Friday, July 08, 2005 By Maeve Reston, Post-Gazette National Bureau

WASHINGTON -- Several hundred yellow-shirted Pennsylvanians converged in Washington yesterday to show support as state officials told an independent commission that the Pentagon was dead wrong this spring when it recommended closing the Pittsburgh-area 911th Airlift Wing, an Air Reserve unit in Moon, and the Willow Grove Naval Air Station, which is north of Philadelphia.

I'm going to go out on a limb and tip my hand at a hunch I've got. Then, I'll ask for your help. This speak first, ask second approach works on one's own blog -- as I can go back and NUKE the dang posting if I wish. That said, ....

I have no problem telling top officials that they are wrong. I do it often. I respect those who have the corage to do the same.

However, if I need to side with one or the other and the options are STATE OFFICIALS and PENTAGON -- that becomes a hard call and I'm more in favor of leaning on the side of the PENTAGON.

Those in the Pentagon have a job to do. They are trusted with a massive duty. I'd rather let them be free to set up their resources as they see fit.

Most of all, I don't want to see a line of reasoning from locals about how the bases are an economic asset that can't be lost. That line of thinking came out in short bursts early in the sound-bite process. I do hope that cleaner lines of thought prevailed and those mentions were left unsaid since then.

So, for now.....

WHERE can one find all the details of what was presented to the base closing commission? Are the materials made available online? Are there transcripts online?

I didn't tune in to see the coverage at PCNC or C-SPAN. Is some of that archived?

I'd love to read the works and have those materials that were presented online.

Thanks for the pointers.

Beijing 2008 equestrian events to be held in Hong Kong

SI.com - Olympics - Beijing 2008 equestrian events to be held in Hong Kong - Friday July 8, 2005 1:45AM SINGAPORE (AP) -- Equestrian events for the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games will be held in Hong Kong to ensure the 'best interests of the competition and the well-being of the horses,' the International Olympic Committee announced Friday.

The agreement finalizes Beijing's push to have the equestrian competition moved about 2,000 kilometers (1,250 miles) away to Hong Kong due to concerns about equine diseases on the Chinese mainland.

The best interests of the horses? Perhaps S.I. just ran the press release for the organizers as the lead paragraph. The true worry, and it is a valid one, is about diseases. No problem. Just tell it like it is.

Pitt football is moving beyond MAC opponents for non-conference games -- yes!

PittsburghPanthers.com - Football Stories The University of Pittsburgh will add five high-caliber opponents to its non-conference football schedule in the coming decade.

Pitt athletic director Jeff Long announced today future non-conference games with Iowa, Miami (Fla.), NC State, Virginia and Virginia Tech.

This year Pitt is to travel to Ohio University in Athens to play a Friday night game in September. I'm an OU grad. I love Athens and my time there was great. But, I'm not planning on going. But the big news is how Pitt is choosing to play Va Tech in the future, and sidestep the likes of the OU Bobcats and Furman.

It is a good move to see Pitt's football schedule filled with more worthy, traditional powers.

The other point of interest is how IOWA is going to show up. Visually, when Pitt takes the field against the Hawkeyes, there will be many in the Burgh and western PA who won't know who to cheer for at first glance. The TV highlights most of all will look like Pitt is playing against the Steelers.

IOWA's colors are black and gold and the uniforms greatly resemble the outfits of the South Side Sabres. (giggle)

ACLU and Patriot Act call

Decisive House and Senate votes on the future of the Patriot Act are right around the corner. For nearly four years now, our government has claimed the kind of unchecked power and lack of due process that challenge our most fundamental principles of freedom and democracy.

While the Bush Administration and some leaders in Congress want to make every one of those powers permanent (and even expand the Patriot Act's assault on fundamental freedoms) there is good news: Democratic and Republican members of Congress, and liberal and conservative opinion leaders, are speaking out against the most extreme provisions of the Patriot Act.

Join the ACLU and Working Assets to make your voice heard. Tell Congress that the Patriot Act should not be made permanent, let alone expanded:
http://action.aclu.org/Petition3

JP's blog: The Conversation covers the passing of a RUNNING MATE: What was he doing with Perot?

The Conversation: What was he doing with Perot?: "What was he doing with Perot?
I am embarrased to admit that until he died, I knew Admiral James Stockdale ....

Great feats and good posting, well worth the read.

Bigger Budget and Bigger Pay for Harrisburg's Politicians

The state house and state senate put in a late budget and is about to get some pay raises. The pay increases are going to state lawmakers, judges, and top honchos within the executive-branch.

The 2005-06 budget of $24.27 billion represents a 6.1% increase in spending over this year's budget of $22.87 billion. This marks an 18% increase in spending for PA since Gov. Rendell took office in 2003.

The pay increase for lawmakers increases base pay 16% from $69,647 to $81,050. Committee chairmen pay increased by 28% to $89,155, and committee vice-chairmen pay increased by 22% to $85,103. Majority and minority leaders' pay increased 24% from $100,911 to $124,788. Pay for the Speaker of the House and Senate President Pro Tempore increased 34% from $108,724 to $145,553.

The pay rates, since the time of Gov Ridge, were hooked to the rate of inflation in Phili. This pay hike goes above and beyond that one that was to last deep into the future.

The PA House and Senate members' I ran against, Diven, R, and Fontana, D, both voted for the tardy budget and voted against the pay raise.

Aug 20 date from Herb. Healthcare discussions slated.

Herb sent out an email:

In Chester County (population 500,000), at least two head trauma patients have died during the one-hour ride to Lancaster General Hospital. Why? Because there are no full time neurosurgeons and no trauma center left in Chester County.

In Titusville, just north of here, the last orthopedic surgeon left earlier this year. Across the state, OB/GYN’s have dropped obstetrics from their practice.

And at present, only 4% of the doctors in Pennsylvania are under the age of 35.

What’s going on? The answer is that the high costs of medical malpractice insurance (and also the high probability of being sued) are driving physicians out of the state or into early retirement.

In 2003, though, the state legislature passed a reform bill which has had a positive effect. The 1,815 medical malpractice suits filed in 2004 were a 34% drop from the 2,751 average of the years 2000 to 2002.

The state representative who spearheaded that bill, Mike Turzai introduced another malpractice reform bill in June of this year and is coming to the Rogues breakfast on Saturday, August 20 to tell us about it. And to tell us how we may be able to help get it passed.

When: 9 AM, Saturday, August 20, 2005
Where: The Holiday Inn on Fort Couch Road in Bethel Park
Cost: $13.00

Please RSVP by Friday, Aug 19 to 412 279.1222 or email Herb so that I can get a count for the Holiday Inn. You may still attend (PLEASE) even if you don't RSVP.

Please pass the word to people you know and invite them to join us this Saturday. This should be an informative session.

Brewski Laverne and Shirley style: PabstCity funding clears key hurdle. Meanwhile Iron City web site still drunk on saving city.

JS Online: PabstCity funding clears key hurdle The proposed PabstCity entertainment and retail development should get $41 million in city financial assistance, based on a recommendation Tuesday by a Milwaukee Common Council committee.

Perhaps Iron City could be saved if we turned the brewery into loft apartments and did a "metro-pole" disco downstairs.

Well, we tried that with the Duke Brewery and have the Brew House artists' lofts on the South Side. That's the building complex near the South Side Hospital and the one with the big clock. And, it isn't so "upscale." But, it happened without the $41-million in public money.

What's up with Iron City anyway? Did the water bill issue get resolved?

The iron-clad irony of the I.C. Brewery saga was the opening, about a year ago, of the Save Our City web site, with its distinctive oval label. As is the case with most beers -- the head was mostly foam. The chuckle of a company doing a web site to save the city while the company was going under and beholden to the grip of the Water And Sewer Authority was intoxicating.

Don't drink and drive nor blog.

It's time to pull plug on monorail

Here are a few great examples of how NOT to do it right. But, as is the case in most ventures in life, there is never a shortage of scripts for failures. And, what plays well in one area may not work in another.

It's time to pull plug on monorail My sense is that the Seattle Monorail Project has entered a lengthy, costly death spiral.

It's time to show mercy on Seattle's squeezed middle-class taxpayers. Let's pull the plug on this exercise of duplicity and waste.

The agency has managed already to pile up a $100 million debt, with what to show for it? It is chugging along at $4 million a month. Interesting to see will be cost figures on the spasm of advertising churned out to defend the discredited financing plan.

In Pittsburgh, at least, we've not spent too much money on Maglev. Sending Brenda to a German vacation or taking some photos while we're in China is not a big deal.

But, we've already spent a lot of money on the plan for the tunnels under the river to the ball parks on the lower North Side.

This is when it takes courage to pull the plug. After spending a good bit of money, it is harder to stop. But, it makes sense to do so from time to time. Don't toss good money after bad. All the spending in the world might not save some projects and turn them into prudent projects that are community centered and sustainable.

Even the convention center enters this type of thinking. Great building, but great burden with overhead and upkeep. Its costs to operate are high, year in and year out. So, we should consider a cut to those losses. I don't mean we should tear it down. Rather, we should sell it off.

Turn the convention center into the slots parlor. Then let the operators of the slots parlor also be private venture for the stadium and exibition authority. They'd run the convention center without any public money. They'd buy it from us.

Then if they want to build another slots hall -- fine. Do it while they operate the one in the Convention Center and then they'll be able to turn the Convention Center into something else -- on their own.

The city and county don't need to be in the big gambling business of being a conention center operator. But, we've got it now. And, we can get out of it soon, with the slots license.

As a zoning move, we could zone the convention center as a facility that is okay for slots. Then the ball is rolling in our favor.

Not Sore Loser. Rather Sore Victor. To the victor goes the spoils.

I'd rather not say anything here and now as I don't want to get "paved over" nor "railroaded" nor "9-to-5-ed" (whatever that might mean).

I did see Diven driving to town yesterday in his big black SUV. I guess he had a court date. Did he miss the budget session in Harrisburg for this?

Libel lawsuit has undercurrent of South Hills political battle Libel lawsuit has undercurrent of South Hills political battle

Wednesday, July 06, 2005
By Rich Lord, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

A long-running battle for political dominance in the city's southern wards went litigious yesterday, as a city councilman sued a foe backed by a rival group.

Going to the Games and checking out Big Ben

Big Ben will look great decked out in Olympic rings. Not #6. London in 2012.

I see London. I see France. I see Kennywood is expanding too. What's up with that?

Trivia: Kennywood has a mono-rail that it purchased a few years ago. Presently, that eqipment is in storage. For Brenda's sake, it isn't a 'high speed' ride.