'Chasing 3000' arrives in Pittsburgh Friday: "Pittsburgh Filmmakers will open 'Chasing 3000' at the Harris Theater, 809 Liberty Ave., on Friday. The movie is about a road trip two brothers take in 1972 to witness Roberto Clemente's 3000th hit."This looks like a fun movie.
Announcing a new Meetup for Pittsburgh Kayakers (ka-"yack"-ers)!
What: Ohio River Paddle & LST Ship Tour
When: Saturday, September 4, 2010 8:00 AM
Where: Westhall Street launch
2030 Westhall Street
Pittsburgh, PA 15233
Come with us on Saturday for a rare opportunity to tour a World War II ship on the water in Pittsburgh! The LST (Landing Ship, Tank) was used to transport tanks, trucks and soldiers to beach landings in such battles as the D-Day invasion at Normandy and the battle for Okinawa. The 382'-long ship could hold 20 tanks. The ship is now a floating museum based in Evansville, Indiana, and is coming to Pittsburgh for a week.
Can a ship that big actually travel to Pittsburgh? Yes. more than 250 of the LST's were BUILT in Pittsburgh, at Dravo Corporation on Neville Island and American Bridge Company at Ambridge. They all sailed down the same river, and through the same locks, that LST-325 is sailing right now. The LST will dock at Clemente Park, between Heinz Field and the Ft. Duquesne Bridge.
We'll meet at the kayak launch at the end of Westhall Street on the North Side, next to Western Pentientiary. Please arrive a little early so we can get on the water at 8:00. A 3-mile paddle will take us up the Ohio to our landing spot at Heinz Field. We'll then carry our kayaks approx. 500', where we'll leave them in the grass adjacent to the ship. The cost of the tour is $10, which goes towards the ship's operation and restoration.
Yes, it's a holiday weekend, but we should be back before lunchtime. I hope many of you can squeeze this into your schedule!
RSVP to this Meetup:
http://www.meetup.com/kayaking-129/calendar/14600040/
Lifeguard shortage shuts Mt. Lebanon pool: "Mt. Lebanon's swimming pool was closed today because of a shortage of lifeguards.
The municipality announced season passes will be accepted at Dormont Pool."
Exclusive: Obama to widen sanctions on North Korea | Reuters President Barack Obama on Monday plans to impose fresh financial sanctions on North Korea by blocking the assets of three North Korean state-owned entities and one North Korean citizen, a U.S. official said.Thanks President Obama for doing this hostile act against another nation and its people after our son has returned from visiting South Korea.
The U.S. official said Obama was expected to sign an executive order widening the scope of existing U.S. sanctions -- which can now be imposed on entities involved in Pyongyang's weapons of mass destruction and ballistic missile programs
Under the order, the United States will now be able to target U.S. assets of entities that support North Korean trade in conventional arms and luxury goods, currency counterfeiting and narcotics trafficking, said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity..
t r u t h o u t | Body Scanners in Courtroom, on Street, Continue to Raise Privacy Concerns: "'TSA is not being straightforward with the public about the capabilities of these devices,' said Marc Rotenberg, executive director of the Washington, DC-based EPIC. 'This is the Department of Homeland Security subjecting every US traveler to an intrusive search that can be recorded without any suspicion - I think it's outrageous.'"
City League preview: Title up for grabs: "Schenley -- The defending City League champion must rebuild its offensive line, but coach Jason Bell has some talented skill-position players. De'Andre Black, who had 11 TDs last year at quarterback, will play running back, receiver and quarterback."
Sent on the Sprint® Now Network from my BlackBerry®
Dear TFTP Friends,
Our chapter will be hosting two coach trainings, noted below. Please share this with any friends or colleagues who may be interested in volunteering as a First Tee coach. We also welcome board members and others who are interested in learning more about our program.
If you have previously had a Level I training you are welcome to register for Level II. These sessions are free and there is no obligation.
Thanks,
Marc Field
Tuesday August 31st from 6 to 8:30 pm TFTP will be hosting a Level I training.
The purpose of Level I training is to better understand the Life Skills curriculum and The First Tee Coach Philosophy.
Level I training is for all TFTP Members that haven't participated in a training previously as well as anyone interested in learning more on ins and outs of TFTP.
Wednesday September 1st from 6 to 8:30 pm TFTP will be hosting a Level II Training.
Level II training is conducted for all TFTP members that have participated in Level I training and have coached at least 1 season.
This Level II training will focus on the Empowering Youth building blocks and Continuous Learning. (please bring your clubs)
Please RSVP to Eric Amato as soon as possible.
Finger foods and beverages will be provided.
Thanks
Eric Amato
Director of Golf and Instruction
www.thefirstteepittsburgh.org
eamato@thefirstteepittsburgh.org
(412)-622-0108
The First Tee of Pittsburgh is a United Way Donor Choice Agency.
You may direct your United Way contribution to #1436656
If you have received this message in error or wish to be removed
please reply with the word REMOVE in the subject line
Daily Reveille - Swimmers volunteer with NBC’s ‘School Pride’: "“This semester we are going to pair with an elementary school close to campus,” Spears said. “Each swimmer will go there two times a month for an hour to read and mentor to the same kid for a whole semester.”"
Out of the pool: Philadelphia swim club faulted for bias: "Since July, the Pennsylvania Human Relations Commission has been investigating whether a private suburban Philadelphia swim club disinvited 56 minority kids from using its pool after some members of the all-white club complained.
This week, the commission released a report that won't be celebrated at the Valley Club in Montgomery County. The 33-page report identifies 'racial animus' and 'racially coded comments' by some members as probable cause for why the club revoked a contract with the Creative Steps Inc. day camp and returned its $1,950 payment after one visit.
The investigators recommended that the club pay a $50,000 civil penalty for discrimination, reimburse the family of the child whose parents filed the complaint for expenses and legal fees incurred and provide racial sensitivity training for the club's board members."
Speakers debate future of Civic Arena: "Nearly 50 people had their say over the future of the Civic Arena today, but in the end no clear consensus emerged as to whether the silver-domed landmark should stay or go."Churn, baby, churn. That's all they offer.
Sent on the Sprint® Now Network from my BlackBerry®
Libertarian Party of Pennsylvania (LPPa) candidates forced from ballot
Libertarian Party of Pennsylvania
3915 Union Deposit Road #223
Harrisburg, PA 17109
www.lppa.org
For Immediate Release: August 23, 2010
Contact: Doug Leard (Media Relations) at Media-Relations@lppa.org or
Michael Robertson (Chair) at 1-800-R-RIGHTS / chair@lppa.org
Harrisburg, PA – Marakay Rogers, Kat Valleley and Doug Jamison wanted to run for state-wide office on the Libertarian Party ticket. They wanted to give Pennsylvania voters more choices in the election.
They collected 25,033 signatures to comply with Pennsylvania’s immense ballot access requirements so their names could appear on the ballot. That’s 23,033 more than are required for Republican and Democratic state candidates.
Republican and Democratic power brokers do not want ballot choice for Pennsylvania voters and challenged the signatures of all third-party and independent state-wide candidates.
Marakay, Kat and Doug wanted to fight the challenge. They traveled to Harrisburg to fight the challenge. In 2004 and 2006, the courts assessed over $80,000 in fees to a candidate who lost a ballot access challenge. This year, our lawyer estimated these fees would run between $92,000 and $106,000. Using this leverage, the power brokers offered a deal – drop your efforts to be on the ballot and avoid exorbitant challenge fees or continue to fight and face the risk of fees that could easily lead to personal bankruptcy. The potential cost of a loss was too great. After deliberation, our candidates withdrew.
The Libertarian Party candidates are not alone. The old-party power brokers have used the signature-challenge process to remove all of the alternative statewide candidates who successfully filed to appear on the November 2010 ballot.
Though the challenge provision of the election code has been in place since 1937, it was not used to remove a statewide candidate from the November ballot until 2004. Since then, the challenge has become standard operating procedure for the old parties.
Marakay Rogers, candidate for Governor, said "This type of dealing may signal the end of third-party campaigning in Pennsylvania, except for the rich or the brave. Anyone can file a challenge and then threaten to clobber their opponent with outrageous and unaffordable legal fees that started accumulating long before any actual hearing. Even for someone who does believe they have enough valid signatures after a challenge, the threat of the fees assessed is enough to force you to back out just in case you might not win."
Added U.S. Senate candidate, Doug Jamison, “I, and my fellow state-wide candidates, will continue our efforts as write-in candidates. At the same time, this challenge has effectively disenfranchised the great citizens of this commonwealth from their fundamental right of the democratic process of selecting the best candidate.”
LPPa Chair Michael Robertson concluded “"The unlevel playing field that alternative party and independent candidates face to be included on the Pennsylvania ballot has turned into a wall. We are calling on the General Assembly to tear down that wall, and allow the voters of the commonwealth the choices they deserve."
The LPPa has strongly endorsed the Voters’ Choice Act, or SB 252, which was introduced by Sen. Mike Folmer (R-Lebanon). The bill would equalize ballot access across all parties, not just the Democrats and Republicans. Unfortunately, the bill has been sitting in committee for over a year, with little indication that it will be passed before the end of the year.
The Libertarian Party is the third largest political party in Pennsylvania and the United States. More than 200,000 people across the country are registered Libertarians, and Libertarians serve in hundreds of elected offices. Please visit www.LP.org or www.LPPA.org for more information.
# # #
Value added: "When I think back on my days at college, I rarely, if ever, look at the nice diploma I was given at Westminster College. Instead, I reflect mostly on the lessons learned outside the classroom.
It's a difficult thing for most college presidents to admit, but a large part of a college education has nothing to do with professors, computers, social media or ivy. Much of how we prepare ourselves for the world outside the classroom is learned in the margins of college life. While students are busy using the classroom to make the 'other plans' John Lennon wrote so cogently about, they also absorb needed lessons on how to exist in the world."
New field construction brings excitement and controversy - The Tartan Online: "Last week, the university opened a new soccer field in place of the old intramural (IM) field. Carnegie Mellon had been hoping to build another field, for the purpose of hosting soccer, track, or intramural events, for the past four years. These ideas began to float around as early as 2006, shortly after the installation of new turf at Gesling Stadium. The turf helped tremendously in the logistics of organizing intercollegiate, intramural, and club events, but another field was deemed necessary."
Physical rigors, mental fortitude test SWAT recruits' true grit: "it was on to physical aptitude in a weight room at headquarters. They were to bench press 100 percent of their body weight, do 29 sit-ups in under a minute, and run 11/2 miles in less than 15 minutes under the heat of a midday sun.
Later in the day, they would hit a city pool, where they were to swim 200 yards and tread water for 10 minutes -- while wearing parts of their uniforms."
If that name, Victor Stabile, is familiar, he was the person behind the effort to keep Libertarian presidential candidate Bob Barr of the ballot by, in essence, saying the LPPA can't substitute candidates from what's on the ballot access petitions. I can't vouch for the origin of the email below, but if it's really from Stabile, it's certainly in-character. Mark
PS -- Tell me again, what's the difference between the Republicans and the Democrats?--
Subject: Great News From: "Stabile, Victor P. (HB)"Date: Tue, August 17, 2010 2:33 pm To: "Stabile, Victor P. (HB)
"Dear Friends: I am very pleased to report to you that challenges to the Green, Tea Party, and Libertarian candidates for state-wide office have been successful and these third party candidates will not be appearing on the November 2010 ballot.
If you recall, I sent you last week an article from the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review which blew the whistle on the Onorato campaign for staging a Tea Party candidate backed by Onorato's union friends in Philadelphia to run for Governor under the Tea Party label. We can now say it did not succeed.
I would be remiss in not recognizing the fantastic organizational job and resources devoted by our Republican State Committee through Luke Bernstein and his staff to organizing the challenges to these third party candidates. I also would like to recognize the number of counsel, including RSC Counsel Lawrence Tabas, Ron Hicks, Dauphin Chair John McNally, and, who like yours truly, devoted many hours and legal ability since last week to working in the Commonwealth Court to document the rampant abuse in these petitions. Voters do not get disenfranchised when fraud is uncovered. Unfortunately, this seems to be the process we are left with to deal with these situations until this type of impropriety is prosecuted.
OK, now that this is done, time to get out and elect our Republican candidates! All my best.
Victor P. Stabile, Chairman, Cumberland County Republican Committee
Un-American Republican and Democratic Cowards Steal Your Right to VoteI am on the side of Regan, not Jim Roddey and not Wayne Fontana, D, PA Senate district 42, who used his bonusgate efforts to run without any opposition in 2006.
Posted by: "Regan Straley"reganstraley@yahoo.com
"Wisdom begins with calling a thing by its proper name."- Ancient Chinese Proverb
Un-American Republican and Democratic Cowards Steal Your Right to Vote for the Candidate of Your Choice . . . Again
Pennsylvania' s Electoral System is a National Disgrace which Demands Your Immediate Attention.
As of today, it appears that the rapacious two-headed beast known as the Demopublican party--which never tires of hoovering the livelihoods out of your paychecks and pensions and giving it to war-profiteering, bonus-addicted corporate executives who pocket most of the pillage and toss the pesky spare change out into clamoring throngs of starving Third World slave laborers--will once again be successful in making sure that you have no real options in the upcoming Fall elections.
Principled third-party and independent political candidates for statewide office in Pennsylvania were required this year to obtain 19,082 petition signatures from registered voters in order to appear on November's ballot alongside the soulless Republicrat sell-outs who are allowed on with a mere 2,000 signatures. Due to some anomalous twist in the cosmic wormhole which should keep Stephen Hawking busy for decades, they were all able to do it.
Early on the morning of Monday, August 9, a cadre of delusional young Doc Marten-wearing Republican and Democratic lackeys who think they will somehow be spared the consequences of their bosses' corruption, bloody froth oozing from their fanged pie holes and briefcases full of "legal" documents handcuffed to their quivering, alcohol-soaked wrists, could be seen camped out on the portico of the Pennsylvania Department of State eagerly awaiting their opportunity to deny your right to fair and free elections. Within hours, sleep-deprived but determined representatives from the state's Libertarian, Tea, and Green Parties would ascend the steps proudly carrying more than the requisite number of signatures needed to qualify their gubernatorial and U.S. Senate candidates, only to be met by a zombified cabal of recent Political Science graduates armed in all their ass-kissing Establishment glory with reams of superficial objections and inane technicalities.
Competition- averse, pseudo-conservative Republicans like our next unscrupulous governor, Tom Corbett, and U.S. Senate wannabe Pat Toomey have all but ensured that you won't be given the opportunity to vote for any Libertarian or Tea Party alternatives. The delicate little schoolgirls on the Democratic side who are afraid of a challenge, executive-mansion mongerer Dan Onorato and the phoney "outsider" lusting after the Senate meal ticket, Joe Sestak, have reduced their Green Party opposition to Mickey Mouse status and left progressives with nowhere to turn for real participatory democracy, sustainable economics, equitable healthcare distribution, or ecological sanity.
"Keeping candidates off the ballot is as bad, if not worse, than denying one the right to vote," said Lou Jasikoff, Chair for the Northeast Pennsylvania Libertarian Party. "Currently we have men and women dying in Iraq and Afghanistan to ensure free and open elections there and yet both the Democrat and Republican parties found it necessary – even in light of 'bonusgate' – to choke off access to the ballot and to give citizens less choice."
"We submitted over 19,000 signatures as required by law," said Mel Packer, derailed Green Party candidate for U.S. Senate, "an accomplishment of major proportions for a grassroots campaign such as ours. Sestak is showing his cowardice with this challenge. Instead of competing with me in the marketplace of ideas, he's simply kicking me off the ballot.
"In 2004 and 2006 respectively, Pennsylvania' s well-greased Democratic machine successfully pulled this same un-American stunt on Ralph Nader's presidential campaign and Green Party U.S. Senate hopeful Carl Romanelli. The Democrats' concerted effort to restrict Green Party ballot access has since mushroomed into what we now refer to as "Bonusgate," in which Democratic officials have been caught red-handed using state employees on state time to comb relentlessly through Green Party petitions looking for names they can present to politically- appointed judges as possibly invalid, all on your dime.
Despite the recent convictions of former Democratic State Representative Mike Veon and a number of state Democratic staffers--as well as the promise of future convictions against former Democratic House Speaker Bill DeWeese and top aides-- Nader and Romanelli remain on the hook for tens of thousands of dollars in legal fees they've been ordered to pay to the Democrats' shysters for their hard work in trashing the right of Pennsylvanians to vote for the candidate of their choice. The working-class Romanelli alone is in the hole for $80,000 and is in danger of bankruptcy, all because he had the unmitigated gall to run for the U.S. Senate in Pennsylvania as something other than a Democrat or Republican.
Folks, I know you're busy trying to feed your families and pay your mortgages, and I know this can all be pretty confusing and difficult to comprehend at times, but if you have any interest at all in correcting the state's and the nation's nosedive into a bottomless morass of economic depression, government corruption, and never-ending illegal militarism, you really need to awaken from your corporate-induced stupors and start paying attention.
As for Libertarians, Greens, and Tea Partiers, please consider anew my tired and oft-repeated mantra to at least temporarily bridge the vast philosophical wastelands between you, pool all available resources, and slay the corporate dragon of Demopublicanism. A Coalition of the Sick and Goddamned Tired, if you will.
Only after thatwill real debate be possible.
Regan Straley http://libyahill.blogspot.com/
Answer sought on parks group - Pittsburgh Tribune-Review: "Allegheny County Chief Executive Dan Onorato says he's working to create a nonprofit group to raise money for the county parks system. Some County Council members wonder why it hasn't been done yet.
They also complain that they get only vague answers or no answers at all from Onorato on what progress has been made.
Relations between council and Onorato have grown tense lately as the two have clashed over who holds the authority to merge city and county departments. Both sides expect to settle the dispute in court"
Former Chief Executive Jim Roddey and council created a Parks Department in October 2002. Roddey said the move was designed, in part, so the county could set up a nonprofit to raise money for and help run the parks, as the Pittsburgh Parks Conservancy has done since 1996.
It's a concept Onorato is familiar with: While serving on City Council, he co-sponsored the legislation creating the conservancy, and is a life member of the organization.
"Any foundation or corporation, they were all leery of giving the city money because they didn't think it would make it to the parks," Onorato said. Setting up a charity whose sole mission is bolstering the parks system makes it easier to get private cash to match the public's contribution.
As a result, he said, "the parks have never looked better. They leveraged all the public dollars, and it's more than the parks ever would have seen under the city's management."
The city parks conservancy has a 20-year master plan to protect and improve Frick, Highland, Riverview and Schenley parks. The plan, which is expected to cost $100 million, includes eventually connecting all four parks.
"I'm a big believer in it," Onorato said. "I think its one of the best things that ever happened to the (city) parks." Eventually, the county will follow suit, he said.
County Council's parks committee Chairwoman Joan Cleary said she's written letters to Onorato asking for details about what progress has been made.
"They told me they're working on it," she said. "They didn't give me a timetable."
Onorato said that's because he doesn't have one yet. He and Parks Director Andy Baechle, who got his job a couple of months before Onorato took office in January, are still trying to "get our hands around what needs to be done in the parks, and put a strategy together."
Councilman Vince Gastgeb, a Bethel Park Republican and avid parks proponent, said Onorato has had nine months in office to put a plan together. Until the nonprofit is set up, the Parks Department can do nothing about the $120 million in estimated repairs that are needed in the counties' nine parks, he said.
The Parks Department was created under Roddey's watch, and Onorato said his predecessor "punted" on the creation of the nonprofit.
Setting up a parks nonprofit "was one of the things we intended to do on the first of this year," Roddey said. "It's a relatively simple process, but there was so much going on, and with the election, it's just not something we got around to doing."
Posts
All Comments
