You Ma'am are a Moron!

Pittsblog was all over this.

I still couldn't resist.

So let me see if I can summarize what you're saying here miss selfish suburbia.

You were either too lazy, too stupid, or too absent minded to put a single quarter in a meter. You were punished for your laziness/stupidity/absent mindedness, and it the city's fault.

Makes....sense?

And if I'm also to understand you correctly; you are going to punish the vendors of the farmers market because you were too lazy, too stupid, or too absent minded to put a single quarter in a meter.

Sally here probably could narrow down the causes of white flight to one single invention....parking meters.

You ma'am....Are a moron.

Heat Waves Suck: One of the Reasons I Now Like Fall Better

Remember when you were a kid? All you wanted was summer time. No school, days at the pool; it was awesome. Not as much any more.

I miss fall.

To pass the time, I came up with a list of the reasons why summer ain't what it used to be. (In no order)

#1: Sports: This is what we are reduced to: 30-54 and the LeBron Hour Starring LeBron*. You know, I could look past the LeBron Hour Starring LeBron if 30-54 wasn't 30-54. Problem is, we are 30-54. So, LeBron Hour Starring LeBron it is...God, where are you football, and most importantly; HOCKEY!!!!! (OH MY GOD DO I NEED THE PENS BACK!)

#2: WORK: You know when you were a kid, the #1 thing you looked forward to during the summer wasn't the weather, it wasn't the vacations, it was the not going to school. Getting up at 10, eating a shit load of sugary cereal and starting your day. That was the life. No more my friends, work work work, all year long. Think you're gonna go to the pool today? Fat chance son, you're working!

#3: Goddamn Heat: Days like today make me want to crawl into the freezer and not come out. If you don't know what I'm talking about, walk outside...no further explanation needed. I long for the brisk fall afternoons where the leaves are beautiful and a sweater or sweatshirt makes you feel nice and cozy.

#4: Did I mention the Heat? You know, the heat that makes all the shit (Barbecuing, eating outside, outdoor sports) that supposedly makes summer the best season absolutely miserable?




*You know what's worse than LeBron's ego? ESPN whoring themselves out for an HOUR so Bron Bron can make a 2 second announcement! I can hear the advertising dollars rolling in now! ESPN is expecting us to waste an hour of our lives (which we will) to hear them pontificate on what they believe he will say during his speech. Which, by the way, will occur at approx 59 minutes and 45 of the broadcast.

The Small Silver Lining, and What Should be the Bigger One.

The tiny silver lining of what is currently spewing into the Gulf:

Loudmouth morons like Daryl Metcalf have temporarily shut the fuck up. It's nice not hearing chants of "drill baby drill" All it took was an environmental disaster that has ruined a regional economy, killed countless numbers of wildlife, and may have lingering environmental effects for years to come.

Here's to hoping the bigger silver lining is coming. Hopefully we as a nation can begin to discuss the ramifications of our dependence on oil.

Unfortunately, hope is not a strategy.

My Thoughts Exactly

I refused to watch two of the big affiliates in Pittsburgh felatiate poor old Ben. I didn't want to give them the ratings.

Chris Potter at the Slag Heap did the work, and the thinking for me. Check it out here. He expressed excellently, why Ben has yet to be held accountable and how his words are just that; words. They are nothing more, not an admission of guilt, or remorse. The worst part about this is, our news media is giving him a pass. At a certain point, our media's love affair with the Steelers stops being cute. At certain times I have relished the fact that the lead in to most newscasts was Steelers related, and that it was all fluff but it's gone too far. The networks are clearly still walking on eggshells around the Steelers organization like it is God's Kingdom come to earth. (Not sure if that has more to do with the organization, or more to do with ratings. Lord knows you wouldn't want to piss any of those yinzers off that watch your newscast because the Steelers lead every night)

We should start a pool; what's the over/under on how long it takes poor old Ben to become a condescending, arrogant rapist again?

Beyond Mockery

Before it was fun to call him “wittle wukey” or Steelerstahl or whatever. I’m just getting sick of it. Mocking does nothing. He continues to push the city of Pittsburgh to see how much bullshit he can get away with and the city of Pittsburgh keeps backing away.

I’m sick of it. The city Ethics council won’t review the nomination. That’s old news from the weekend. A lot of people are bitching and rightly so, but we get the government we deserve.

Here’s an idea…act!

The article states that the only way they would investigate is if either a person requests an opinion BEFORE they undertake a potentially risky ethical move or if a FORMAL complaint is filed. Everyone is sitting around waiting for Peduto or Shields to file one.

Screw them; it seems they don’t want to upset the apple cart. You know who else can file an ethics complaint???? YOU CAN!

Here’s the link to the city ethics complaint form. You can download a PDF complaint form and submit it:

For good measure here’s the link to the Allegheny County Ethics Council. Submit a complaint to them too.

Even if these complaints are denied, let them know that you’re pissed about this! Let them you’re tired of being treated like a simpleton who will let the city leadership (Ravenstahl in particular) do what they want, when they want.

ENOUGH!!!!

This is Too Good to Pass Up!

Saw this on the PG today.

I couldn't resist. First, here is the text of the comment that set me off:

"And that's a good thing. Pennsylvania needs to worry about balancing it's budget, creating jobs, keeping the streets safe and reducing taxes. Our politicians should not be worried about questionable bans of our personal liberties.
Slowly but surely, if we sit back and let them tell us what we can do from day to day, we will soon find ourselves no longer living...in the land of the free."


Any guesses on what my tea-baggin buddy is refering to? Is it the second amendment? Could it be railing against "socialist healthcare"? No, Uncle Sam is worried about a law making it illegal to text while driving.

You sir are a moron! You alllllllmost had me that the state has a lot of worthy issues on its plate currently. Almost... You completely lost me in that last paragraph. How in the hell is a ban on an unsafe activity "questionable"?

Let me explain something to you, and I need you to try to pay attention as if Rush or Glenn were typing this. If you are texting while driving it is dangerous. It is dangerous because you could rear end another car, or you could lose control of your car and slam into another car, or you could drive through a red light and get T-boned. Do you catch my drift there homeslice?

Hey asshole; the next time a 16 year old broadsides your car because they were texting, make sure you don't get mad at them. Make sure you get out, shake their hand, and thank them for exercising their freedom to operate a motor vehicle in a dangerous and irresponsible manner.

That's in the constitution....right?

A Riddle

Q: What is the difference between Ben Roethlisberger and a serial rapist rotting in jail????

A: A good lawyer

Nothing new here, but really, he is a bad person. He doesn't deserve the sympathy/attention/money that he gets. The Steelers are shooting themselves in the foot. I can never look at this franchise the same way as long as that piece of shit is on the team.

A Quick Newsflash

For all of you "reconnect the hill types" who wants to obliterate any trace of the Civic Arena, I have a couple things to chew on in your mind.

-The Igloo didn't separate your neighborhood, 579 did. It's a gigantic trench gouged out between downtown and the Hill. Look at a satellite image, it's a much clearer defining line than the big dot just to the east. No matter how many streets they re-build over the arena property, there's still one way into and two ways out of downtown (Centre in and Bigelow and Centre out), because of the aforementioned highway.

-The Igloo didn't prevent Giant Eagle and Kuhn's from either balking at or pulling out of deals to re-build a Super Market in the Hill. Blame Giant Eagle especially, a "neighborhood" company that won't lift a finger to support a hometown neighborhood. Kuhn's at least tried, but ran into financial trouble.

-Whatever development they put there isn't being put there to help residents of the Hill. It's going to be upscale to attract to young business types, not long time Hill residents. Best case scenario is that it will Gentrify the area, and that's not going to help the Hill at all!

-So you want the development? That's fine too. Look at a map, the parking takes up two city blocks! You could easily keep the arena and re-develop the parking lots. Those are MUCH more of an eyesore than the arena.

What is it You Were Looking For?

Everyone seems to be down on Obama these days. From the Gulf oil spill or “Obama’s Katrina” to the impending great Democrat vote out scheduled for this November, it’s become fashionable to be down on Barrack.

A commenter on the Radical Middle made a statement that as much as I hate to; I have to agree with. This commenter stated that Obama has “become too liberal for the moderates and too moderate for the liberals.” So true except for one little word: “become”. I think he has always been that way; but the American public has awoken. So far, with the exception of transportation and infrastructure, he has stayed pretty true to his word. He talked about beginning to focus on Afghanistan, and has done that by drawing down forces in Iraq and beginning to re-deploy those forces to Afghanistan. He talked about reversing “Don’t ask Don’t Tell” and is well on the way to doing that. Last but certainly not least, he talked about healthcare reform, and, well; we all know what happened in March.

All this was done while the economy was in the middle of taking a big stinky dump and a massive environmental disaster that will make the Exxon Valdez look about as bad as a turd floating in the kiddie pool.

So I think in-action is not the problem. He hasn’t exactly strayed from what he said he was going to and wanted to do. The problem is people didn’t want Obama, or any democratic President for that matter. They just didn’t want George Bush, and were too gun shy to vote for another Republican candidate. They voted for him because he wasn’t another G Dubs.

Here’s the problem: They didn’t pay attention to what he said, or what McCain said, or what Palin said (ok, no one did that because they were too busy laughing). Obama didn’t pull the wool over anyone’s eyes.

A friend of mine stated the other day “I voted for Obama, but I’ll tell you this; I did NOT vote for him to change healthcare”. Guess what, he didn’t hide the fact during his campaign!!!! Maybe you shouldn’t have called his bluff! Maybe you should have evaluated your decision a little better. If that was such a hot button issue for you, then perhaps you should have reconsidered.

My point to all this is; if you really supported a lot of the issues Obama addressed during his campaign (which I do for the record), then I don’t see a reason to be all that upset with him thus far. If you are one of the above people, then tough shit. He was pretty clear on what he wanted to do as President. If you don’t like the idea now, then you probably didn’t like it then. You just weren’t paying attention.

Dear Silvertop

It must be a rite of passage for oldsters. Buy a car that is too big for you so you can drive it too slow and too clumsily. Be it a Buick Park Avenue, the popular Ford Crown Vic, or the old standby Caddy; the big car with old people in it is a ubiquitous sight in Pittsburgh.

I had my own run in with one last night. It’s the same old story, two little old people in a big ass car attempt to parallel park using the brail parking method and they bang into your bumper several times in order to squeeze into a spot that should be large enough to fit an 18 wheeler.

If it’s not ok for a 16 year old to hit the cone on the parallel parking test, what then, makes it ok for a 70 year old to do it on the street? I understand that your reflexes are slower, and you just aren’t as sharp as you used to be. Well here’s a whacky idea ol’ timer: Get a goddamn Smart Car, or a Mini, or any other LITTLE car. Just not this behemoth that you don’t have the slightest idea of how to park or drive. Eventhough. You. Live. In. The. City.

So please dear old person, you still live in the city, and god bless you for that, but get a new car, a smaller car, it’s amazing how much room a smaller European car has in it. What is the point of all that luxurious room if you can’t drive or park the damn thing?