Vote For GreA+ Schools! YES!

Also check out the detailed Q&A on the project, and the referenda.

I commute in southern New Jersey on either I-295 (taxpayer-paid) or the New Jersey Turnpike (user-fee paid with some taxpayer subsidy) – they run roughly parallel along this stretch, so they “compete” for users. Because the NJTPK is tolled, while I-295 is not, you would think that a business using this route, say Bolt Bus or one of the Chinatown buses would use I-295 exclusively. In fact, while there is some of both, most of them appear to prefer the Turnpike. Why is that so? After all, they are already paying corporate tax, payroll tax, fuel tax, and apportioned highway taxes, but on TOP of that, to use the Turnpike, they ALSO have to pay a (presumably significant) TOLL. Why, exactly, IS that?

LOOK at the friggin’ MAG WHEELS, for one thing. HOLY SH!T!

But if you go by the idiots that post reviews of stuff online, it’s a cheap piece of crap;

http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20090806100208AAUILrE

Is a 20″ Mongoose Rebel Freestyle Bike a good bmx bike?

“I was just wondering is this was a good bike because i have this bike and I want to start bmx. So yeah. And what are good brakes for this bike?
Please answer. Thanks “

by Chipilin the pug

Member since:

July 09, 2009

Total points:

856 (Level 2)

Best Answer - Chosen by Voters

“noo not good they suck if its from walmart or any other dept store so no it sucks its to heavy. a goodBMX bike costs like 900 and up get a haro only buy the bike at bike shops no where else”

Apparently, according to these geniuses, you have to spend $300 – $800 (and definitely NOT $130 at Wal*Mart) to get an acceptable bike for a SEVEN YEAR OLD.

SIGH.

There, I Fixed It

On vacation this week in my former home state of Pennsylvania, I passed a billboard on I-95 south at 322 (undoubtedly paid for by the taxpayers of said state) touting the “Chairman’s Selection” by the Pennsylvania Liquor Control Board. It slickly presented typical bucolic wine-business images of grapes, vines, barrels, etc, all to give the casual viewer the idea that a state wine monopoly is just great, look, we even have special selections of wines by our Chairman. I am sure this was by the merest coincidence a mile or three from the massive privately-owned wine store just across the border in Delaware, a state whose residents presumably live their lives bereft of the wonderful wine selections made by the chairman of their neighboring state’s liquor monopoly.

I couldn’t find the billboard online (Joe?) but in the spirit of trying to help all those folksy bureaucrats in Harrisburg to successfully put across their message, I corrected the PALCB’s “Chairman’s Selection” logo. You’re welcome!

Here’s one someone did earlier;

Wine Revolution For The People

(PHOTOS: PLCB, wikipedia, me, Empty Bottles)

The other from 2004 – Jessica Grassia of Toronto’s Golden Dogs sparkles on what could be the New Jersey State Anthem; “Construction Worker”

Eggs, Bacon, Butter, Cheese, Salt, Red Pepper.

Had to do it – hit 214.5 this AM;

Philadelphia wants tow truck drivers to toe the line | WHYY News and Information | WHYY.

I want to thank you for this post, and tell a short story. I bought a new house in 2007 I know, I know, the incentives were ridiculous and I needed more room. I took the builder financing more incentives and refinanced for a lower rate as soon as my old house sold. The cost was something like $3000, to save $50K over the life of the loan. The paperwork was all done correctly, in a traditional closing. When rates went down again in 2008, I got itchy to refinance, figuring to save another $50K or so. I made the error of refinancing with Amerisave – $10K in fees and buydown, the application paperwork was utterly incorrect, I corrected all the figures on the road and sent it back to them, they completely ignored it- THREE TIMES – the loan officer Mark Cerra was a COMPLETE asshole, by the end I rejected the paperwork again, but did the deal so as not to lose my fees. If this is typical of what was occurring by the end, the industry is completely fucked.

via Gonzalo Lira: The Second Leg Down of America’s Death Spiral.

It's Not Just The Service, It's The Scenery

“…(T)he Federal Aviation Administration has proposed a mandatory $5 billion solution for Donovan and dozens of other Tinicum Township residents and businesses: Cut them a check and bulldoze the whole neighborhood. You want to stay? Too bad.”

Wait just a second here. The City of Philadelphia is broke, stone -cold busted, a wealth-destroyer without regional parallel. Until they get their spending and taxing under control, they have no moral authority to condemn a cardboard box, much less dozens of homes NOT EVEN IN THEIR JURISDICTION.

If we lived under a system that retained any justice, it would be Tinicum condemning the rump of airport property technically within the city’s administration, and kicking their asses back across the Schuylkill River.

But good luck doing that. As we have seen in the $20+ BILLION theft of Albert Barnes’ art collection, the judges that hover around the city like flies around a garbage can are owned by the politicians and Big Men of the City That Stabs You Back. They don’t need no stinking jurisdiction, they just take. “Here’s a dollar, now get lost”.

Meanwhile, the city continues to bleed residents, businesses, and, despite (or due to) carrying rapacious and malign taxation policies to a ridiculous extent, tax dollars. And the people that run it are still living in 1950.

(link courtesy of my wife)

via Tinicum residents airsick over plans to expand Philadelphia Airport | Philadelphia Daily News | 09/02/2010.