DRE 700 is running strong

Michael Phelps and Bob Bowman formed partnership to operate a pool in Baltimore

Great news for both the story of the community and the swimming.

Michael Phelps and Bob Bowman formed partnership to operate a pool in Baltimore - More Sports - SI.com: "BALTIMORE (AP) -- Michael Phelps and his coach, Bob Bowman, have formed a partnership to operate the pool where the Olympic swimmer began training at age 7.

Their partnership, Aquatic Ventures LLC, formally announced on Friday that it was taking over at the Meadowbrook Aquatic Center and the North Baltimore Aquatic Club, which produced Phelps and six other Olympians over four decades.

'We're just very excited to be home,' Bowman said. 'This is our home.'

Taking a walk

I'm walking on The Great Wall. Don't trip.

1 charged in PSU football rioting is from WVU

Can you smell skapegoat? It takes a WVU student to go to State College to kick up a real storm after a football game victory. Go figure.

14 charged in PSU football rioting: "The suspects include a West Virginia University student, a University of Maryland student and two others who are not Penn State students.

OC Moms - A place for Mom's in Orange County: Mom Bloggers Emerge as Crucial to a Brand's Success

How many Pittsburgh mom's have blogs?

OC Moms - A place for Mom's in Orange County: Mom Bloggers Emerge as Crucial to a Brand's SuccessMom Bloggers Emerge as Crucial to a Brand's Success

The Top 5 Sporting Rivalries!

The Top 5 Sporting Rivalries!: "Sporting rivalries can often be as absorbing to watch as the sports themselves and usually occur as a result of two teams or individuals competing to be the ultimate champion. However other factors can come into the equation such as locality, religion and politics. Combining these ingredients often results in an epic sporting encounter which grips the entire sporting world.

These are my top 5 sporting rivalries

What a list.

Boxing, Tennis, Skating, Cricket, and Football.

Pitt vs. Penn State in football, nor the Backyard Brawl or the Steelers vs. Browns is on his list.

Jazz Violinist Billy Bang

If you are looking for something exotic to do on Saturday night Jazz Violinist Billy Bang will be at the Kelly Strayhorn Theater in East Liberty. Definitely interesting and unusual. Read the story on him and his film presentation to see if you are interested and it's appropriate at http://www.pittsburghcitypaper.ws/gyrobas/Content?oid=oid%3A54839

Billy Bang & The Aftermath Band. 8 p.m. Sat., Nov. 8. Kelly-Strayhorn Theater, 5941 Penn Ave., East Liberty. $25 ($30 day of show). 412-322-0292 or http://www.proartstickets.org

Feels like Paris - photo needs a $9M subsidy to get there

Who wants to go to Paris? Who wants to pay $9-million to Delta Airlines as a 'golden parachute' on its risk for flights from Pittsburgh to Paris?

Live Blogging an interview:

Dan Onorato on Marty Griffin: Not true. There is a backstop guarantee. And, it is 'private money.'

Why does it matter. It is much easier to do the transfers in Europe than in the US on the east coast. You loose an entire day.

We have 330 companies in Pgh that employ 46,000 people. They were loosing a day of work.

If you give us direct flights, we'll provide the tickets.

Most airports offer a waiver of landing fees of flights to airports. You give us direct flights, we'll waive landing fees. Not lost revenue.

We'll guarantee so much revenue. It is a bonus of $5M in first year. $4M in second year. There are only two years in this deal. That's the $9M in the headline.

The first year's total of $5M breaks with $2.5 M from private companies and $2.5M from the commonwealth. That's PA Tax Money going to Delta. In year two, it is $2Million from private sector and $2Millionn from PA. Real money from Pennsylvania is $2.5M + $2M.

Private sector does not want to pay for this. But, who is the 'private money' supplier -- exactly?

Onorat said, "International companies are key!" Dan Onorato could not put the county into the deal. The private sector has really stepped up.

Onorato: "I want to have this conversation a year from now. If they pack it, (the flights from Pittsburgh to Paris) then the state would not need to have the state nor private money involved."

Then a caller to the show said that the last thing that this region needs is another fleecing from an airline company. We need transparency.

Perhaps the reporting wasn't 'ideal.' But, it isn't 'transparent.'

Companies that offer a 'backstop' are on the hook. But, who is going to extract that money from them if needed? How does that deal work, exactly?

A rehash of Mark C's vote for President

This isn't my words, but that of another Libertarian named Mark. Mark C posted:

I voted for Barr. His change of heart on several issues, real or not, was enough of a "man bites dog" story (reversal on drug war and PATRIOT Act) that I figured he could capture some media attention. I wish it had captured more attention than it did.

Besides, the thrifty Republicans spent like drunken Democrats. Their last Iraq war justification was as a welfare program aimed at an inner city that was a nation. Those protectors-of-the-little-guy Democrats let the PATRIOT Act and REAL ID stand untouched. As long as we treat all citizens like they're guilty members of a sleeper cell, then that's our fairness doctrine. And, hey, Homeland Security, TSA, etc. are big enough expansions of government that any Democrat could overlook potential civil rights trashing.

Barr's debate logic escaped me. He won't win, I understand that. I'll then settle for either educating people about LP ideas or to forcing the media to address ignored questions. This is where I think he missed the boat or that boat didn't even sail.

I wish he would have debated the other third party candidates as often as possible. Surely he's a smart enough guy to present a case that without both personal and economic freedom we're all at risk. That's the education part that didn't happen enough.

I also wish he would have screamed something like, "Why are Republicans spending like drunken Democrats? and "Why hasn't the Democrat congress repealed the PATRIOT Act?" and "Why do both parties want new, expensive departments that only serve to threaten individual rights? Those questions may have been asked, but I certainly didn't hear them enough.

Mark C.

Council OKs $1.8 million for Zone 3 police station - Pittsburgh Tribune-Review

This is silly spending. This is "churn." They are moving for the sake of moving. There is no 'expansion.' The city is in decline. This isn't a new station. This is a move. Move the chairs on the deck of the Titanic.

Furthermore, they are moving into a facility that should be a youth hostel. Pittsburgh could use a youth hostel. We had one. It was miss-managed by a bunch of weenies on the Youth Hostel Board. They drove the facility to the brink and beyond.

Then the URA took over the building. The URA should have done some URBAN REDEVELOPEMENT there. But no. The URA only sells the building to the city. That isn't what urban redevelopment looks like. That is a total failure.

The building should be put back into the hands of a private owner. Do a joint partnership if you must with the building. Make it into a B&B. Make it into a teacher's quarters for out of town teachers to lodge. Make it into a Ronald McDonald's House for families who have kids staying in area hospitals.

The URA, again, failed the city.

The city, again, failed the taxpayers.

The police, again, move to a station that isn't ideal.

The only ones who make out are the folks who do the churning -- perhaps a few contractors.

Council OKs $1.8 million for Zone 3 police station - Pittsburgh Tribune-Review: "Pittsburgh City Council today tentatively approved a $1.8 million plan to renovate a new Pittsburgh police station in the city's Allentown neighborhood.

The Warrington Avenue building is owned by the Urban Redevelopment Authority and once served as a youth hostel. If council members approve the renovation plan in a final vote Tuesday, the city will own the building.

City Council raises fine for drinking alcohol outdoors to $200

Why not just enforce the existing law four times as much?

City Council raises fine for drinking alcohol outdoors to $200: "City Council raises fine for drinking alcohol outdoors to $200
Thursday, November 06, 2008
Pittsburgh Council today approved quadrupling the fine for open container law violations today, meaning that anyone nabbed drinking alcohol in the streets could be hit with a $200 fine.
'The nuisance problem with open containers in neighborhoods like the South Side Flats, like Oakland, seriously sap our public safety services,' said Councilman Bruce Kraus, the prime sponsor.

You can't legislate good behaviors. Government can't punish the people and expect to good results.



There are plenty of things that can be done that are much more productive than this. But, it would take a bit of creativity.

Barack Obama's win means Japan and Tokyo are toast

Original from 11-5-08.

Triumph!

Meet me in Chicago, come 2016.

Tokyo fears Barack Obama's election gives Chicago edge for 2016 - SI.com - Olympics Japanese Olympic officials fear the election of Barack Obama as U.S. president could make his home city of Chicago the favorite to host the 2016 Olympic Games and harm Tokyo's bid.

(See comment about the PM that is a 1976 Olympian and shooter.)

Tokyo, Chicago, Madrid and Rio de Janeiro are the four cities in the running to host the 2016 Games.

'I wonder how IOC members will react when Mr. Obama appears in a presentation for Chicago,' Japanese Olympic Committee President Tsunekazu Takeda told Japanese media Wednesday.

The IOC will name the 2016 host at its general assembly in October next year.

'Mr. Obama is popular and good at speeches, so things could get tough for Japan,' said senior JOC board member Tomiaki Fukuda.

More about baseball -- in an update:

Could Obama election help baseball in Olympics?
With Barack Obama in the White House, baseball officials think their sport could have a better chance of getting back into the Olympics.
Read the full story at http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2008/baseball/mlb/11/05/gm.meetings.wednesday.ap/index.html

This is silly if you ask me. Obama will be much less of a friend to baseball than George W. Bush -- a former MLB owner himself. Perhaps baseball can get a break from W. Now that W is with some spare time on his hands, he can go out and stump for his most favorite sport and not need to worry about the goings on with Team USA -- err -- the Nation.

"Hour of Power" - put it in the pool

CollegeSwimming.com::Third Annual "Hour of Power" A Day Away: "More than 5,500 college, high school and club swimmers from nearly 100 different teams plan to jump into the pool on Thursday, Nov. 6 with the same goal in mind––going all out for an hour in the name of cancer research.

The Carleton College swimming and diving teams are sponsors of the third annual “Hour of Power” Relay for cancer research in honor of former Carleton student and teammate Edward H. “Ted” Mullin, who passed away from sarcoma, a rare soft-tissue cancer, in September 2006 at the age of 22. This year's 'Hour of Power'is set to include nearly eighty colleges swimming simultaneously.

The event is a one-hour, all-out, leave-it-in-the-pool practice that will occur simultaneously at numerous pools across the country and involve teams from NCAA Division I, II and III, including teams like Princeton, Georgetown and Providence and nearly every Minnesota Intercollegiate Athletic Conference (MIAC) program.

Bonus:

USTA takes ambitious steps to find, cultivate tennis talent - USATODAY.com

USTA takes ambitious steps to find, cultivate tennis talent - USATODAY.com: "USTA takes ambitious steps to find, cultivate tennis talent"

We get to stay!

The 2008 general election for US President brings good news for us. We get to stay. Let me explain. Had the other US Senator, John McCain, won, then we would have been getting into moving mode. My wife, not in the photo above, said, "If McCain becomes US President, I moving to New Zealand."

Something in the way he moves, just makes her want to flee. Out of sight, out of mind, I guess.

Well, we're staying. I told her all along that we'd not need to depart as there was no way that McCain was going to win the election. So, we were not worried too much.

Sure, Obama and his team ran a wonderful race. They had a good story. He kept his cool. They did get a bit nasty, oh well. And, they burned through a lot of money. It helps if you have money and spend it before election day arrives, unlike John Kerry who didn't deploy all his cash as he should have.

But for as good as Obama was, McCain was worse. Tom L, a "R," and a Running Mate here with this blog, was right when he said he'd have to hold his nose and vote for McCain. McCain wasn't McCain throughout the months of the campaign. He was not a puppet. But, looking hard, some might have seen the strings had it not been for his winkles of old age.

A McCain folly to remind Rs of was the snub of Ron Paul in the time of the GOP Convention. But generally, Obama's success was due in large part to the urgent desire to send the Neo-Cons and the Bush legacy packing.

Far worse than the McCain fumble of Ron Paul's message was the fumble from Bob Barr, Libertarian, former GOPer and Congressman from Georgia.

Ouch.

Bob Barr tried, some. He did. But he didn't do well at all. He was iced by the mainstream media. He could have made some fine remarks within the discussion. The general voter is poorer to have been filtered of his insights. Yet, talk of bad campaigns needs to begin and end with Bob Barr's efforts and results.

Within the city, I'm not sure who had more votes, Bob Barr or Tony Oliva. I'll have to look it up.

Good to see some other statewide candidates from the Libertarian Party get 3% of the vote. Barr was a point oh three percent. That's .03 percent. That's one-third of one percent. Ouch squared.

Barr lost my vote when he wouldn't do a phone interview with KQV. Go figure.

In the end, I voted for self-interest. I voted to stay. You know what they say about a house divided. Plus, I voted for all the other Libertarians.

PPS Plan needs another overhaul

Pittsburgh Public Schools had an open comment period on a long-term plan. A few groups I know of took the plan to the carpet and poked wide holes in what was put out for review in early October.

The plan needs another review and revision period with another round of public comment.

There were so many constructive points already delivered, I didn't send in a formal point by point critique.

Furthermore, if the revision is sent to me -- or made available on the web (as in a Google Document) -- I'd be most happy to re-post it within a wiki to allow for easier, more effective edits and input, (with the rollback capacity).

I understand that there is a need to get a plan to Harrisburg. But, garbage in and we'll get garbage out. If it is worth the effort -- it is worth doing well.

Now what?

So, now what?

We can expect a special election for city council in the district of Dan Deasy. Dan is going to be a state rep and will be departing city hall for Harrisburg.

We can expect a race for Jim Motznik's seat too. He is expected to run for a D.J. seat. That would be a wide open race as there are already a number of folks getting geared up for that.

Some school board seats are filled in 2009 as well.

Photo above is from the Adidas booth on The Olympic Green.

Summary pointers

Official PA election results:
http://www.electionreturns.state.pa.us/ElectionsInformation.aspx?ElectionID=28

Congratulations to Jim Barr (CP) in getting 14.4% in his district:
http://www.electionreturns.state.pa.us/ElectionsInformation.aspx?ElectionID=28#C7-20

and David Posipanka (LP) in getting 11.1% in his district:
http://www.electionreturns.state.pa.us/ElectionsInformation.aspx?ElectionID=28#C7-35

and Titus North (GP) for his 8.7% in his Congressional district (BTW: great commercial during the Colbert report):
http://www.electionreturns.state.pa.us/ElectionsInformation.aspx?ElectionID=28#C5-14

The Libertarian Party should get Minor party status with Betsy Summer's returns of 3% statewide:
http://www.electionreturns.state.pa.us/ElectionsInformation.aspx?ElectionID=28#C3-0

other interesting maps that include third parties:
http://www.cnn.com/ELECTION/2008/results/president/allcandidates/

http://hosted.ap.org/specials/election_night_2008/election_map_premium/index.html?SITE=MASPDELN

Hat tip to Dave Powell for this posting.

Open Letter to Obama from Nader

One learns plenty about a person in both victory and defeat. This letter went out on election day.

Open letter to Senator Barack Obama

Dear Senator Obama:

In your nearly two-year presidential campaign, the words "hope and change," "change and hope" have been your trademark declarations. Yet there is an asymmetry between those objectives and your political character that succumbs to contrary centers of power that want not "hope and change" but the continuation of the power-entrenched status quo.

Far more than Senator McCain, you have received enormous, unprecedented contributions from corporate interests, Wall Street interests and, most interestingly, big corporate law firm attorneys. Never before has a Democratic nominee for President achieved this supremacy over his Republican counterpart. Why, apart from your unconditional vote for the $700 billion Wall Street bailout, are these large corporate interests investing so much in Senator Obama? Could it be that in your state Senate record, your U.S. Senate record and your presidential campaign record (favoring nuclear power, coal plants, offshore oil drilling, corporate subsidies including the 1872 Mining Act and avoiding any comprehensive program to crack down on the corporate crime wave and the bloated, wasteful military budget, for example) you have shown that you are their man?

To advance change and hope, the presidential persona requires character, courage, integrity -- not expediency, accommodation and short-range opportunism. Take, for example, your transformation from an articulate defender of Palestinian rights in Chicago before your run for the U.S. Senate to an acolyte, a dittoman for the hard-line AIPAC lobby, which bolsters the militaristic oppression, occupation, blockage, colonization and land-water seizures over the years of the Palestinian peoples and their shrunken territories in the West Bank and Gaza. Eric Alterman summarized numerous polls in a December 2007 issue of The Nation magazine showing that AIPAC policies are opposed by a majority of Jewish-Americans.

You know quite well that only when the U.S. Government supports the Israeli and Palestinian peace movements, that years ago worked out a detailed two-state solution (which is supported by a majority of Israelis and Palestinians), will there be a chance for a peaceful resolution of this 60-year plus conflict. Yet you align yourself with the hard-liners, so much so that in your infamous, demeaning speech to the AIPAC convention right after you gained the nomination of the Democratic Party, you supported an "undivided Jerusalem," and opposed negotiations with Hamas-- the elected government in Gaza. Once again, you ignored the will of the Israeli people who, in a March 1, 2008 poll by the respected newspaper Haaretz, showed that 64% of Israelis favored "direct negotiations with Hamas." Siding with the AIPAC hard-liners is what one of the many leading Palestinians advocating dialogue and peace with the Israeli people was describing when he wrote "Anti-semitism today is the persecution of Palestinian society by the Israeli state."

During your visit to Israel this summer, you scheduled a mere 45 minutes of your time for Palestinians with no news conference, and no visit to Palestinian refugee camps that would have focused the media on the brutalization of the Palestinians. Your trip supported the illegal, cruel blockade of Gaza in defiance of international law and the United Nations charter. You focused on southern Israeli casualties which during the past year have totaled one civilian casualty to every 400 Palestinian casualties on the Gaza side. Instead of a statesmanship that decried all violence and its replacement with acceptance of the Arab League's 2002 proposal to permit a viable Palestinian state within the 1967 borders in return for full economic and diplomatic relations between Arab countries and Israel, you played the role of a cheap politician, leaving the area and Palestinians with the feeling of much shock and little awe.

David Levy, a former Israeli peace negotiator, described your trip succinctly: "There was almost a willful display of indifference to the fact that there are two narratives here. This could serve him well as a candidate, but not as a President."

Palestinian American commentator, Ali Abunimah, noted that Obama did not utter a single criticism of Israel, "of its relentless settlement and wall construction, of the closures that make life unlivable for millions of Palestinians. ...Even the Bush administration recently criticized Israeli's use of cluster bombs against Lebanese civilians [see www.atfl.org for elaboration]. But Obama defended Israeli's assault on Lebanon as an exercise of its 'legitimate right to defend itself.'"

In numerous columns Gideon Levy, writing in Haaretz, strongly criticized the Israeli government's assault on civilians in Gaza, including attacks on "the heart of a crowded refugee camp... with horrible bloodshed" in early 2008.

Israeli writer and peace advocate-- Uri Avnery-- described Obama's appearance before AIPAC as one that "broke all records for obsequiousness and fawning, adding that Obama "is prepared to sacrifice the most basic American interests. After all, the US has a vital interest in achieving an Israeli-Palestinian peace that will allow it to find ways to the hearts of the Arab masses from Iraq to Morocco. Obama has harmed his image in the Muslim world and mortgaged his future-- if and when he is elected president.," he said, adding, "Of one thing I am certain: Obama's declarations at the AIPAC conference are very, very bad for peace. And what is bad for peace is bad for Israel, bad for the world and bad for the Palestinian people."

A further illustration of your deficiency of character is the way you turned your back on the Muslim-Americans in this country. You refused to send surrogates to speak to voters at their events. Having visited numerous churches and synagogues, you refused to visit a single Mosque in America. Even George W. Bush visited the Grand Mosque in Washington D.C. after 9/11 to express proper sentiments of tolerance before a frightened major religious group of innocents.

Although the New York Times published a major article on June 24, 2008 titled "Muslim Voters Detect a Snub from Obama" (by Andrea Elliott), citing examples of your aversion to these Americans who come from all walks of life, who serve in the armed forces and who work to live the American dream. Three days earlier the International Herald Tribune published an article by Roger Cohen titled "Why Obama Should Visit a Mosque." None of these comments and reports change your political bigotry against Muslim-Americans-- even though your father was a Muslim from Kenya.

Perhaps nothing illustrated your utter lack of political courage or even the mildest version of this trait than your surrendering to demands of the hard-liners to prohibit former president Jimmy Carter from speaking at the Democratic National Convention. This is a tradition for former presidents and one accorded in prime time to Bill Clinton this year.

Here was a President who negotiated peace between Israel and Egypt, but his recent book pressing the dominant Israeli superpower to avoid Apartheid of the Palestinians and make peace was all that it took to sideline him. Instead of an important address to the nation by Jimmy Carter on this critical international problem, he was relegated to a stroll across the stage to "tumultuous applause," following a showing of a film about the Carter Center's post-Katrina work. Shame on you, Barack Obama!

But then your shameful behavior has extended to many other areas of American life. (See the factual analysis by my running mate, Matt Gonzalez, on www.votenader.org). You have turned your back on the 100-million poor Americans composed of poor whites, African-Americans, and Latinos. You always mention helping the "middle class" but you omit, repeatedly, mention of the "poor" in America.

Should you be elected President, it must be more than an unprecedented upward career move following a brilliantly unprincipled campaign that spoke "change" yet demonstrated actual obeisance to the concentration power of the "corporate supremacists." It must be about shifting the power from the few to the many. It must be a White House presided over by a black man who does not turn his back on the downtrodden here and abroad but challenges the forces of greed, dictatorial control of labor, consumers and taxpayers, and the militarization of foreign policy. It must be a White House that is transforming of American politics-- opening it up to the public funding of elections (through voluntary approaches)-- and allowing smaller candidates to have a chance to be heard on debates and in the fullness of their now restricted civil liberties. Call it a competitive democracy.

Your presidential campaign again and again has demonstrated cowardly stands. "Hope" some say springs eternal." But not when "reality" consumes it daily.

Sincerely,
Ralph Nader

NADER vs BARR vs BALDWIN Third Party Presidential Debate at CSPAN Junkie

Just in case you missed it:

NADER vs BARR vs BALDWIN Third Party Presidential Debate at CSPAN Junkie: "NADER vs BARR vs BALDWIN Third Party Presidential Debate