Discussion Board

Is now back in operation. Sorry for the delay but illegal workers are cheap but not very fast. Thought $0.25/hr was suspicious. What is really suspicious is the Longswamp Supervisors taking a check to fight a lawsuit from the people they are supposed to be repesenting, when that check comes from a group they are supposed to be regulating.

Rep. Samuel Roher At Longswamp

Rep. Roher will be at the Longswamp Township Building on Friday, March 18th at 8:00 pm. He will give a talk and answer questions on the pending legislation to eliminate school property taxes. Any and all are welcome. Refreshments and snacks will be provided.

While this legislation does raise some serious questions, at least Rep. Roher has done his homework and not some half-baked scheme. This can't be said for the representatives that are pushing Act 72 for their failure to fund education in the commonwealth.

More Pi Day Celebrations

If he had two pies the joke would come full circle.

The Didn't Mention the Atomic Wedgie

CLEVELAND (AP) - Wedgie, a teenager's locker-room nightmare, has made it into the dictionary. Webster's New World College Dictionary based in Cleveland said wedgie was among its new additions to its latest edition.

The new edition will carry this listing: wedgie: noun. a prank in which the victim's undershorts are jerked upward so as to become wedged between the buttocks.

The dictionary also carries the tradition wedgie definition of a type of shoe.

"'Wedgie' was always a part of the high school terminology that you sort of never thought about later," said Editor in Chief Michael Agnes.

"It never really entered the mainstream until the '90s. It broke out of high school and, boy - if you don't know what it is, you're absolutely at a loss."

The new edition will reach bookstores by May and has 58 new entries, plus another 20 new senses of existing words (such as wedgie).

The additions include Al Qaeda, blog, cargo pants, irritable bowel syndrome and partial-birth abortion.

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Only In America

With Mayhem at Home, They Call a Parent Coach: "Parent coaching, the newest self-help approach for overstretched parents, is catching on for several reasons. It is cheaper than counseling, with many coaches charging $75 an hour and at least one Internet coaching service charging $30 a month. It is usually done by phone, letting parents squeeze in sessions without hiring baby sitters or taking time from work. And it is capitalizing on the parental penchant for seeking secrets from pros - the tendency to call in the super nanny depicted on reality TV instead of calling your mother."

Happy Pi Day

Sad Penguin Records: "Forty-five minutes of Ned Raggett reading the world's most popular irrational number. Listen to the thrills of a number that goes on and on and never repeats and never ends (though we do cut the recording off after a while) and explains the sordid relationships between diameters and their precious circumferences.

(If you are interested in this you should check out Ned's previous album over at Tape Mountain, in which he read excerpts from the almanac.) "

It is now official you can buy anything over the Net.

Lack of Integrity

School board members now face a new foe members of the State Legislature. They are now bringing their influence to bear for board members to enable their junk bill Act 72 and help legitimize their deplorable actions in passing the original gambling bill. Paul Carpenter had an excellent Op-Ed in Sunday's Morning Call.

"The first sentence in the part of the Pennsylvania Constitution that deals
with legislation says, in plain English, this:''No law shall be passed except by
bill, and no bill shall be so altered or amended, on its passage through either
House, as to change its original purpose.''House Bill 2330 began that process as
a one-page measure providing for state police background checks of people
seeking horse-racing licenses. When finally passed by the state Legislature, it
had been altered and amended into a 145-page slot machine monstrosity at the
behest of the gambling industry, a special interest group with tons of money to
spread around.Every word of the original bill was altered and amended into
oblivion. So much for the solemn oath politicians take to uphold the state
Constitution.
....
Not so many years ago, the state paid half the cost of public education.
Much of that burden has shifted to local subdivisions, and the gambling law was
ballyhooed as a way to reduce soaring local property taxes that came as a
result.The gambling law (Act 71) and the accompanying ''tax relief'' measure
(Act 72) require local school boards to opt in or opt out by May 30.If they
participate, they must raise their local income taxes to get a cut of the slots
money and must put some future tax increases to voter referendums. Some
lawmakers also want referendums that can override any school board decision not
to participate.So legislators, rather than taking any heat themselves,
are hot to put local funding for public schools in the hands of voters, while pretending to address school funding problems by accommodating the gambling industry's lobbyists.
.....
No one articulated that chicanery more superbly than Bethlehem School
Superintendent Joseph Lewis, accusing legislators of lacking 'intestinal
fortitude' on Act 72.' If they are so intent on letting the voters decide for
themselves, they should put the state budget up for a referendum,'' he was
quoted as saying a few days ago. 'If legislators say the voters should
decide, then let them decide on the municipal, county and state level. … If they're in, I'm game. I'll accept a referendum if everyone else will.'
"

Either we have a representative republic or we have mob rule the gang in Harrisburg can't have it both ways. What really shows the unmitigated gaul of these gutless wonders is that part of Act 72 declares that on the check,property owners may receive one day, there has to be a sentence printed on it saying that this check is from your friends in Harrisburg. Well it doesn't it will come from people that are bad at math, the poorest of the poor and from your fellow working citizens.

Act 72 and The Slots Bill

Act 72 the so called Homeowners Relief Bill is heating up with each school district mandated to deicide by May 30th if they will opt in to the various provisions of the Act. Trouble is nobody really knows what all those provisions are.

One thing is certain if a school district opts in there will be an increase in the earned income. Now here is the really interesting part, the original Slots For Tots bill which is supposed to fund at some distant point in time is under legal attack for the simple reason they violated the state constitution when it was hurridly passed. If districts opt in and the slots bill is thrown out taxpayers will be looking at an increase in their earned income with no offsetting money from gambling. An excellent op-ed was reacently published in the Morning Call explaining the position of the people that are challenging the bill. Every taxpayer should read Who Will Stand Up for Democracy?.

"Pennsylvania is the only state in the nation without a law requiring
lobbyists to disclose what they’re spending and doing to influence our
legislators and our governor. The only state.

So it’s no mere
coincidence, in our opinion, that Pennsylvania authorized more slot machines
than any state but Nevada while our citizens were not protected by a lobbyist
disclosure law. It is no coincidence that our legislators and our governor
cooked a secret deal and enacted it within 36 hours when there was no way for
anyone – ever – to know how much money changed hands and what promises were
made."
.....
"Whether you’re for gambling or against it, the way Pennsylvania authorized 61,000 slot machines was an insult to democracy. Despite a Constitution that plainly says bills should be considered on three different days in the House and three different days in the Senate, our gambling law was enacted in just 36 hours.

You and I had no opportunity to see what was proposed – and what we opposed. When we learned that lawmakers could own 1 percent of gambling interests, when we learned that our communities could be colonized by huge gambling parlors over the objection of local residents and officials, we raised Cain. Last fall, facing unhappy voters at election time, the General Assembly passed changes – only to have them vetoed by Gov. Rendell.

All of that could have been avoided if our public officials would stop playing keep-away from the people"

Discussion Topics

The discussion board will be shut down temporarily for a rework. Some people with way too much time on their hands have been spamming this board and others across the web with garbage links. The undocumented workers who manage this site are busy as a one armed paper hanger remedying this temporarily problem. So hang on to those thoughts.

Special ed driving up school costs

"Government-mandated spending has forced local taxpayers to make up for funding shortfalls by federal and state agencies.More Philadelphia Suburbs news

Special education costs at public schools have risen dramatically, becoming more of a driving force behind rising property tax bills and fueling the debate over how those programs are funded.

Although school officials say traditional school programs haven't suffered at the expense of increasing special education costs, they fear unpopular budget cuts could soon become unavoidable, particularly at districts that decide to accept state gambling proceeds and the spending restrictions tied to that money." MORE :