Actually, this caption. (We are not talking about the lazy editor running the photo across four columns to fill space.) C'mon, kids, you learned this in fifth grade.
Credit: Page D4 of the morning newspaper.
]]>Reading's projected year-end deficit will nearly double, to $17.2 million, as earned-income tax revenues are falling way under budget, overtime expenses are higher and the city paid on a loan with money it doesn't have, outside consultants told City Council on Monday.
The higher deficit - well over the $9 million earlier projected - means the city will have to borrow $17.2 million just to meet its bills this year.
It also will have to add another $900,000 to next year's budget to begin paying off the loan, said Gordon Mann, senior consultant for the team. The state-hired team created the city's Act 47 financial recovery plan and now is helping implement it.
Really, is there any way Reading can dig its way out of this hole? It's the poorest city in the nation, and the chronically unemployed residents can't afford higher taxes. And the few that can will move out. Casino gambling anyone?
Actually, this caption. (We are not talking about the lazy editor running the photo across four columns to fill space.) C'mon, kids, you learned this in fifth grade.
Credit: Page D4 of the morning newspaper.
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The number of vehicles installed with devices that prevent a driver from starting the ignition if he's been drinking will double in Pennsylvania this year.
That, however, will only put the number at 6,000, all with restricted licenses due to DUI convictions. Considering that the devices are pretty reliable in keeping drunks off the road, why not expand the program?
Make the devices mandatory on all new vehicles sold.
Sure, the contraptions can cost around $1,000, but that could come down if they were mass-produced. Enforcement sounds like a state issue, although compliance can be dictated by threat of withholding federal highway funds, just as states are coerced now to stick to a maximum speed limit. (the Right will, of course, scream "REGULATION!!!" Let them.)
No, not every driver sits behind the wheel drunk, and most would never consider it. So why make them pay? Well, 16,900 drivers were busted by state police in 2009, and that was the most ever. Meanwhile, 141 people died as a result of alcohol-related crashes, and another 4,625 were injured. Cutting corners is no consolation if you're one of the victims. The benefit for all, besides safety, would be lower insurance rates since the number of alcohol-related would precipitously drop.
The devices work by requiring motorists on restricted licenses to blow into a tube that detects the presence of alcohol. If alcohol is detected, the vehicle will not start and the driver must wait five minutes before trying again.
A second failed attempt will result in a 30-minute lockout, and a third failed attempt will result in a recall of the device, meaning it must be taken to a service center within five days to have it reset, at an average cost of $75.
Last year, the devices recorded a total of 47,493 failed attempts to start a vehicle.
The cabbies union should embrace the legislation.
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There she goes again, D-list fame-whore Hailey Glassman is still trying to suck meat off Jon Gossein's carcass by launching a blog on Radar. Thankfully, the website "left her writing unedited to accurately portray what she wants to express" (as well as allow readers to mock her subliterate ramblings, such as "They really did do a doozey on me, that’s for sure!" and "STOP THE SHANNINAG THINKING!)"
These excerpts give you the full flavor"
There is not one cent of credibility with him. I know what you’re all thinking, “Well Hailey isn’t any better, I hate her,” which is weird due to the fact that I have not lied about anything once. In fact my problem is that I’m too honest sometimes. Try and think of one time I lied about something in the media. ….still trying to think of something?...
You would all be SHOCKED. I figured I’d save this torture I went through and life lessons and all the real juicy crazy stuff the media did not get a hold of for a BOOK. It will make everything make more sense -- time lines, evidence of time lines. Just the whole nightmare of this annoying, traumatic, hurtful Soap Opera, which encumbers so many lives around us with the media and public hating and talking so much smack that it made “nobodies” into” notorious”.
Her P.S. begins,"Not as dumb as you thought people…"
Not so fast, kid.
Read how Hailey tried to peddle her story in Al Walentis' behind-the-scenes book
]]>What if, during political campaigning, candidates had to wear a NASCAR-driver suit that had the patches of their campaign sponsors?
The fly in the ointment is that some candidates would have to be the size of 50 Chris Christies to fit on all the patches.
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The weather's cooling off, or will be, and our little friends from Asia are going to need a place to chill during the brutal winter months.
So they're hoping to shack up with you.
According to the Morning Call, the stink bug is gearing up for old man winter by dining on assorted tasty treats indigenous to our region, before moving inside:
While the threat to crops is still evolving, the bugs are firmly entrenched as household pests, creeping into homes for warmth and turning up everywhere — hampers, sheets, shoeboxes. And for little bugs, their wings can make a startling racket.
"These bugs have nothing better to do than hang on the side of your house looking for a place to get in," said Frank Modrick, district manager of Ehrlich Pest Control in the Lehigh Valley. "And they'll find somewhere to get in."
Don't worry. They don't bite; they only emit that foul odor if you step on one or scare one. And they'll be back outside gobbling up your vegetable garden next summer.
"What makes them different is that most overwintering insects don't come in until about Halloween time, then vacate very early in the spring, around April," entomology student Richard Cooper told the paper. "Stink bugs are different. What they do is come into homes at the end of August, beginning of September. They enter a good two months earlier than the other bugs and don't leave until mid to late June."
Look around you. They're already here.
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Sadly, Superintendent Thomas Chapman said he is leaving the Reading School District for the greener pastures of Philly (!), Boston and Virginia, where he has family.
His retirement will leave city schools in the lurch, following a tenure in which he turned the district into one of the finest in the state.
By his own words, all the nice things he accomplished -- higher test scores, lower drop-out rates, fewer riots, new buildings -- came together like "Irish stew."
Some might say "Blarney!"
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Court documents obtained by WJAC-TV said that a Madisonburg man has been arrested after confessing to his involvement in the murder of Samuel Boob last year.
According to a criminal complaint, 26-year-old Kermit Butts was taken into custody after he admitted to assisting Ronald Heichel with his plans to kill his lover’s husband.
Authorities arrested Mirinda Boob and Ronald Heichel last August after Samuel Boob was discovered fatally shot on the driveway of his Tusseyville Road home.
And it happened right here in Centre Hall, PA.
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