I had a lively phone conversation with Saccone’s office before we produced this one, in which I kept listing all the Bible laws that might be inconvenient in our times.  The woman on the other end of the phone got VERY flustered and upset. At one point she said that “the Old Testament doesn’t count, Christians only follow the New Testament.” She also said I must be confusing my Bible with my Koran.

She was certainly letting her freak flag fly.

Let me set the scene. I was headed north on 7th Stree, behind an enormous maroon Durango, one of those SUVs that are so big they look like some kind of prehistoric cow made of metal, the kind that’s so wide they almost take up a lane and a half.

I don’t know why people buy these things for city use. The cost of filling up the tank must be a fortune, and you can never get the vehicle up to speed simply due to the characteristics of urban driving. But there he was in front of me, leaving just enough room for traffic in the right lane to squeak by. We were at a stoplight just before passing under the entrace to I-95 when I heard the distinct shriek of a police siren, and saw the lights in my rearview. It must have been a real emergency, because that car was making a TON of noise.

So, like all the other drivers, I pulled over to the side to let the cop get by. Well, like ALMOST all the other drivers. The SUV didn’t move at all. It just sat there. The cop blared on his horn, flashed his lights, but nothing. Finally, I leaned on MY horn, and the driver’s head popped up. Realizing he was blocking the cop, he FINALLY pulled off to the left. The cop hit the gas and sped by.

As we continued up 7th, two more cop cars shot by, lights and sirens in full display, followed by ANOTHER car. Big times up the street to be sure, and as we crossed Spring Garden Street, the cops had amassed at the Edgar Allen Poe housing project. [and may I add here that, historical figure or not, the name "Edgar Allen Poe" conjures up images of horror and murder, why would you name a housing project after that?]

One car had blocked access to the cross street, Brown. Cops were heading north on foot, into the project. A federal homeland security van pulled up alongside us and parked. Meanwhile, a policeman was waving the line of traffic through.

Unfortunately, the maroon SUV had other ideas. Instead of moving along, the SUV just sat there taking up a lane and a half. People started honking, but the driver wouldn’t budge. There was no way to get around him without damaging the federal van.

But finally, very very sloooooowly, the SUV moved to the left, just enough so the rest of us could go on our way. He pulled up onto the curb, his ass-end blocking the cross-street like he was an unofficial deputy.

As I passed the behemoth, I saw that the driver and his wife were staring out the window, watching the activity up the street with their jaws dropped. Yes my friends, they had decided that traffic be damned, here was an actual crime investigation taking place, for once it wasn’t on the teevee, and by gum, they were gonna watch the fun.

I hate Philly drivers.

Someone call the waaaaaaaahmbulance, and then call ME a doctor because I just shattered all of my ribs laughing so hard. Send the bill to Susie Madrak, she’s the one who did this to me.

But just how flush is a family of four with a $250,000 income? Are they really “rich”? To find the answer, The Fiscal Times asked BDO USA, a national tax accounting firm, to compute the total state, local and federal tax burden of a hypothetical two-career couple with two kids, earning $250,000. To factor in varying state and local taxes, as well as drastically different costs of living, BDO placed the couple in eight different locales around the country with top-notch public school districts, using national data on spending.
The bottom line: It’s not exactly easy street
for our $250,000-a-year family, especially
when they live in high-tax areas on either coast.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHA, holy SHIT. Poor babies. Poor big, fucking crying whiney-ass titty babies with dirty diapers full of indian food. Check THIS out:

State income taxes, taken alone, are just $10,557. But factor in the gas tax ($2,679), property tax ($15,222), phone service taxes and surcharges ($350) and sales tax ($2,258), and the picture looks far different. Their total tax bill, including the AMT and payroll taxes: $78,276.

Hmm, so let me tally that up: horrors, “only” $171,274 to live on.

Gimme a fucking break: I make less than 20% of what this hypothetical family makes, and guess what? I’m doing pretty OK. So here are some saving tips, rich people, from a working-poor stiff.

First of all, you don’t need a $750,000 house. You just don’t, and with housing costs dropping like a stone, you don’t need to spend that much.
You also don’t need a Lexus, a Range Rover, or BMW. Buy a late-model used car, it saves a shit-ton of money. Or, if you must buy new, get a Subaru or a basic Toyota. You don’t need the luxury model, the fucking thing is only there to get you from point A to point B. And if you NEED two cars, make sure at least one is used. Plus, you’ll save a bundle on insurance. By the way, the limited tort insurance is cheaper than the full-coverage. Just sayin’.

Why are you buying your clothes at a brand name store? Shop at Marshalls, you dumb rich motherfucker, or at Target like the rest of us. Why are you buying NEW clothes at all, when you can find gems at the local thrift or consignment shop? Why aren’t your kids wearing the older siblings’ hand-me-downs? That’s what my younger brother and sister wore.
Why are you spending $10 on lunch at work? Folks, it’s really fucking easy to pack a sandwich or bring in some leftovers. (I’m not gonna bust your ass on the $25/takeout meal, every parent has to do this once in awhile). Did you get a BJ’s Wholesale membership? You can save a LOT of money that way. Also, cut up all but one or two of your credit cards, and pay off your debt asap.

Is that NEW furniture in your house? Why? I can understand avoiding used beds and sofas due to bedbug worries, but dining room sets and wooden furniture doesn’t have that issue. Why are you running a really expensive stainless steel fridge, when you can save a bundle at the Sears dent-and-scratch center?

Why are you living in the most expensive neighborhoods of the most expensive cities? Look, I get it Mr. Stockbroker, you gotta work in New York, and that’s expensive. But what the fuck, Staten Island is a shit-ton LESS expensive than Manhattan, and so are Queens, Brooklyn, Long Island, and even a bunch of New Jersey, right across the river. For that matter, why the FUCK do you have a housekeeper? Shit, even if you both work and don’t have time to keep the house spic-and-span, a weekly (or even monthly) cleaning lady is a LOT cheaper than a housekeeper. And why aren’t your kids doing their own laundry, what kind of lazy bastards are you raising?

I get by on far, far less than you do, rich whiny assholes, and I manage to have plenty of dough left over after paying my child support, my student loan, my mortgage, and my bills.

“Down and Out on $250,000″, good grief. $250,000 a year would solve most of MY financial problems, so here’s a tissue:l go cry to someone who cares, motherfucker.

[I'm adding the tag "mentally ill" to this one, because you have to be fucking DERANGED WITH SELF-PITY to suggest that it ain't easy pulling in a quarter-million dollars a year. ]

U.S. Sen. Patrick Leahy of Vermont says he thinks a resignation by New York Congressman Anthony Weiner would be in the best interests of his constituents and the U.S. House…. Leahy also says he supports the House Ethics Committee investigation, but says he would welcome a decision by Weiner to resign voluntarily.

Jesus fucking christ. The dude has broken no laws, he hasn’t even had real sex with these women, but Pat Leahy who hasn’t said fucking BOO about David Diapers Vitter, Mary Titty-Lickin’ Good Bono, Larry Widestance Craig, or even Mark I-Like-Tennage-Boys Foley wants him to resign. What the fuck?

Then I saw one of the pictures Weiner took of himself, and jesus christing fuck, I think I knew what the problem is. So I called Pat Leahy’s office.

riiiiiiing….. riiiiiing

“Hello, Senator Leahy’s office,” sais a sweet-voiced young woman.

“Hi,” I said. “My name’s Brendan Skwire, and while I’m not a constituent, as a civil libertarian, I have always been a fan of Senator Leahy. I used to live across the border in Western Massachusetts, and I always liked his approach. I support him on reforming the PATRIOT ACT, on ending the wars, and getting our country back on track. I called yesterday to register my objections to his call for Anthony Weiner to step down…” and I listed all the of various politicians above and how Leahy hadn’t said anything about any of them.

“I was curious why he wanted Weiner to step down,” I went on, “because it didn’t make a lot of sense to me. But then I saw the totally nude picture, and i think I’ve figured it out.

“A lot of senators are really old, right? How old’s Pat, he’s gotta be pushing 80 at this point.”

[The fact is, Pat Leahy looks and sounds like a turtle who burnt out his vocal cords by drinking bleach of something. He's ancient.]

“And here’s this brash young guy, with this incredibly hot wife, he’s totally physically fit, and he’s… well, let me just say that if i was Anthony Weiner’s father, I’d be VERY proud of my genes–”

“OK SIR, WE GET IT,” the young woman began shouting over me.

“I mean, he’s hung like–”

“WE GET IT, SIR”

“…a freakin’ horse, he puts Ron Jeremy to sh–”

“WE GET IT SIR, WE GET–”

“–ame, and I think that Pat’s just jealous. Can you confirm that for me?”

CLICK. Or rather SLAM!!!

I have no patience for this nincompoopery. Anthony Weiner broke no laws. This is between him, his wife, and his constituents, 56% of who want him to carry on. Pat Leahy needs to shut his trap until and unless he’s ready to start calling for all these others to resign as well.

If not, I’m going to keep making fun of him, just like I’m making fun of Allyson “haha, I bankrupted you” Schwartz and nancy “my face is frozen from too much botox and I haven’t had sex in decades” pelosi.

So until I hear otherwise, my belief is that Pat Leahy and the rest of these scolds are simply jealous. Leahy’s in his 70s. And not to be mean, but his wife’s as ancient as he is. The dude probably hasn’t had sex without the help of Viagra in years.

I’ll admit, I’d be jealous too. But I’d also keep my mouth shut about shit that isn’t my business and doesn’t hurt the public interst, like a good team player.

CAIRO — The Arab League secretary general, Amr Moussa, deplored the broad scope of the U.S.-European bombing campaign in Libya and said Sunday that he would call a league meeting to reconsider Arab approval of the Western military intervention.

Moussa said the Arab League’s approval of a no-fly zone on March 12 was based on a desire to prevent Moammar Gaddafi’s air force from attacking civilians and was not designed to endorse the intense bombing and missile attacks — including on Tripoli, the capital, and on Libyan ground forces — whose images have filled Arab television screens for two days.

What the fuck do you think a “no fly” zone is? Hint: it’s not maintained by a little old lady in crossing guard outfit telling Khaddafi’s planes they’ll just have to go fly elsewhere.

The Arab League, which called for the no-fly zone, needs to shut the fuck up too. You bought it, you own it.

Can’t build a road. Can’t fix a bridge. Can’t lay train tracks. Can’t pay teachers. Can’t help you with college. Can’t patrol Wall Street. Can’t raise taxes. Can’t protect entitlements. Can’t find Bin Laden. Can’t end the two wars we already started. Bomb Libya? Sure, we can do that.

I’ll add that if, as President Obama says, we need to intervene because “we can’t stand idly by when a tyrant tells his people that there will be no mercy”, why haven’t we started bombing the repressive murderous regime in Bahrain? Why aren’t we protecting the rebels on the Ivory Coast? When do we move into North Korea? When do we establish a no-fly zone over Yemen?

I’d also like to know what we do if airstrikes and a no-fly one don’t get Khaddafi to relinquish power. And as my friend Booman asks,

“If we cannot fight a war on behalf of the Libyan rebels then we can’t very well topple Gaddafi militarily, can we? After all, the rebels are being routed in the field. Airpower may drive Gaddafi’s forces back to the west, but it can’t seize Tripoli. This is no way to fight a war. And what if Gaddafi complies? I think the clear implication of our policy is that his mere existence in power equals a lack of compliance. There isn’t anything he could do that would be recognized as compliance. Regime change is the policy. The terms of this UN resolution tie our hands… [no one seems to know] what victory might look like and what our responsibilities will be then?

In the meantime, the hypocrisy of crying “no-can-do” when it comes to our very real needs at home, versus our eagerness to spend more blood and borrowed money on what looks to me like another unwinnable adventure, is as stark as it is galling.

The two big Philadelphia newspapers, which are written at a 5th grade level in order to hold the interest of the more than 50% of Philadelphia adults with the reading skills of a ten-year-old (pardon the pdf), have decided to experiment with a paywall. This premise is, to me, ludicrous on its face: if a paywall didn’t work for the New York Times country’s paper of record, who in their right mind would believe a newspaper written for illiterates would successfully implement the same system, when the quality of the content is so dumbed down?

But it gets even better: according to Bucks Local News:

Philly.com readers will still be able to get Philadelphia Inquirer and Daily News stories for free, said editor Wendy Warren in response to a report that the media company was planning to institute a pay wall.

Warren added that the company would, however, charge readers who want those stories “laid out like a paper,” via her @WendyWarren Twitter account.

“@fixgear Inquirer, DN articles will still be found on P.com for free. If you want stories laid out like a paper, you’ll have to pay,” Warren tweeted Wednesday night.

Because God knows how difficult it is to read articles formatted for the internet instead of in 1.5″ wide columns, especially in the 15 years since people have grown accustomed to reading the news online. It just makes sense that people will pay for the privilege of reading otherwise free content in a different format… if you live on Planet Stupid, that is.

But it gets even better as you’ll see when you log in, which by the way is difficult: after a few minutes of clicking on “current user? Click here to sign in”, you’ll realize you actually have to click waaay to the right of the sign-in icon.

The digital edition is laid out sort of like a photoshop document, with layer upon layer of distracting menus on all four sides. When the paper opens, it’s too small to read the text, so you click the “zoom” tool (which you don’t need for the free version at philly.com), and it zooms in so close you can’t read more than a few words. That’s when you learn the zoom has two settings: too far out or too close.

Not only that, the zoom tool sits on this dashboard thing that covers up half of the text in whatever you’re trying to read. And boy oh boy, is the emphasis on “trying”, because to read any single article, you have to scroll up and down and side to side. But every time you try to scroll, the dashboard appears and blocks the scroll bar. If your mouse passes over the headline, a pop-up balloon appears, covering the text of the article. In that balloon? The same text you were trying to read to begin with.

After two minutes I gave up on trying to navigate this…. this thing. I felt like I was back in highschool, navigating microfilm, except that the microfiche viewer was easier to use and didn’t have a menu of icons blocking half the text. The Daily News application was almost entirely useless, and if the “front page” of the digital Inquirer, littered with green balloons pointing out which page each article starts on, is any indication, the Inky is even worse.

Honestly, I don’t know who is going to use the digital edition voluntarily, never mind paying for the privilege. The whole format hurts my eyes and gives me a headache. I wish i could tell you that one feature or another worked well, but I can’t. Calling the digital version of the newspapers “a piece of shit” is too kind… to fecal matter.

So, to recap: the digital edition doesn’t work very well, is unsightly and hard to read, and provides (for a fee) the same information you get at no charge at the parent company’s website. The whole enterprise makes no sense no matter how you look at it: no one’s going to pay to use an ungainly application to read dumbed-down news written the functional illiterates who are the majority in this city.

Whoever came up with the digital edition should be fired, and probably hauled out and shot, for wasting money. It’s a fucking disaster, and please note: my comments have nothing to do with content and everything to do with presentation, ease of use, user-friendliness, and format.

I think Barack Obama should change his name to Captain Caveman. Not because he’s a wacky cartoon super-hero who solves crimes with attractive underaged girls, with a penchant for smashing his enemies with a giant club, but because the dude does nothing but cave. he’s got all the spine of a jellyfish, all the spunk of Ron Jeremy after 9 sex scenes in an hour, all the fight of the world’s worst boxer. Actually, scratch that last one: Peter Buckley may be a shitty boxer, but at least he fights. Barack Obama? My 6-year old could steal his lunch money. Behold, as Barack Obama caves on letting the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy expire:

President Barack Obama’s top adviser suggested to The Huffington Post late Wednesday that the administration is ready to accept an across-the-board, temporary continuation of steep Bush-era tax cuts, including those for the wealthiest taxpayers…

“We have to deal with the world as we find it,” Axelrod said during an unusually candid and reflective 90-minute interview in his office, steps away from the Oval Office. “The world of what it takes to get this done.”
[...]
The White House has failed utterly on a goal that it tried to make its signature issue right before the midterms. Now the administration is clinging to a very slender thread — the notion that if Congress makes tax cuts for the middle class permanent, while only allowing a temporary extension of tax cuts for the wealthy, it will force a vote further on down the line on whether or not to continue extending tax cuts for the richest Americans.

Get ready for those Social Security cuts kids: Captain Caveman’s already surrendered. And don’t expect a DADT repeal: Cavey’s ready to cave on that too. Bet on it.

It seems only this past week, I wrote you both about diverting the $400 million for rail investments for Ohio, recently rejected by Governor-elect John Kasich, to Philadelphia. And it only seems like two weeks ago, I wrote to you requesting $3.38 billion in transit funds rejected by Governor Christie in New Jersey. Now it seems yet ANOTHER new source has emerged, as Wisconsin’s new governor Scott Walker has decided to try to funnel $810 million committed to light rail to highway projects. Secretary LaHood, you have already warned Governor Walker that these funds are for rail only, and that the US government will “engage in an orderly transition to wind down Wisconsin’s project so that we do not waste taxpayers’ money.”

As my previous letters have detailed, Philadelphia has the fourth largest transit system in the county, SEPTA, yet it is in disrepair and in desperate need of funding. Projects I have described in the past include extending the Broad Street Subway to the Navy Yard tech park; developing and implementing a Smartcard system that would bring the system into the 21st century, attracting riders and revenue; building the light rail line to Reading; building light rail to Pottstown; and repairing/upgrading the retaining walls surrounding Amtrak 30th Street station.

Much like Ohio, New Jersey, and Wisconsin, Pennsylvania (and the city of Philadelphia in particular) are suffering from high unemployment rates of about 10%. Unlike these aforementioned states, Philadelphians actually want to get back to work: these funds, about $4.59 billion, would provide sustainable jobs for the city, and for the surrounding region as I have previously described. Not only would there be immediate employment to construct the lines, there would be long term job in railway maintenance, operations, and administration, there would be substantial employment in supportive industries and in the small businesses that locate near transit in hubs.

Secretary LaHood, you have written passionately about your belief in walkable, livable communities and the value of transit. Mayor Nutter, you have spoken eloquently and inspiringly about your hope to transition Philadelphia into the greenest city in America. $4.59 billion in transit funds for our fair city would go a long way toward accomplishing both these goals, allowing Philadelphia to a model for the rest of the country.

Frankly, Philadelphia is a much more deserving recipient. There’s a reason people make videos like the following about Cleveland:

Cincinnati? Ugh.

Madison, a city a large town with a state legislature, a college, and a bunch of hippies, to Milwaukee, a place with nothing to do?

And don’t get me started on New Jersey, a vast cultural wasteland that exists only to embarrass and/or titilate the rest of the country.

Philadelphia, on the other hand, is the 6th largest city in the US (none of the others are even in the top ten), a crucial Amtrak hub, home to a burgeoning restaurant scene, the best beer-drinking city in America, and of course the birthplace of the American Revolution. We were crucial in delivering the presidency to your boss: surely that counts for something as well. We’ll put that $4.59 billion to use: you can count on that.

Please divert these monies to Philadelphia transit projects, and let us show New Jersey, Ohio, and Wisconsin what our uniquely American “can-do” attitude can accomplish.
Feel free to call or email me if you have further questions. I have cc-ed this open letter to several friends, family, and colleagues.

Sincerely,

Brendan Skwire