Timothy Anderson didn’t get away with any cash from his attempted robbery of a Dormont Eat ‘n’ Park because he forgot that he needed Honey Bunny.

Due to the fact that I have decided that Onorato, Harrisburg and the Port Authority will be perpetually stupid, unless something miraculous happens, I will no longer comment on the Onorato drink tax.

Harrisburg and Onorato: As elected officials and having four-plus years to deal with the stupid mis-management of the Port Authority, they have failed and will continue to do so, claiming their hands are tied instead of looking for alternative solutions.  Onorato should be ashamed for pitting industry vs. homeowners.  But, he’s obviously learning from Clinton how to posture himself politically.

Port Authority:  Well, it’s hard to undo decades of incompetence and bureaucracy.  The fact that many have been appointed by Onorato… well, the Port Authority is now just an extension of him.

Even though I’m for the cutting / eliminating of taxes, I don’t agree that Clinton (or McCain’s plan) is well-thoughtout enough to actually make an impact.  Removing the $0.18 federal tax from gasoline for three months only to put it back into effect in September?  Say I have a ten-gallon gas tank that I fill up once a week - current cost is about $35 dollars / week.  Remove the $0.18 and I save $1.80 / week.  Over 12 weeks I would save $21.80.  Meanwhile, we’d have to put our faith in the oil industry for the money to repair roads and bridges.  Hell, when we can barely maintain the terrible conditions that Pennsylvania’s roads are in, this doesn’t sound like a good idea.

At the same time, this is just pandering.  An empty promise. Will anything actually be done about this before the Summer vacation season starts?  It is three weeks away.  This is just an empty promise by Clinton that actually borders on a bald-face lie.  The fact that people even listen to this nonsense is sad.  Especially when they will not even check the facts themselves or that of economists who actually know what they’re talking about.  Even the Bill Clinton’s former adviser Robert Reich spoke out against this idiocy.

“The gas tax holiday is small potatoes relative to everything else. But it’s so economically stupid (it would increase demand for gas and cause prices to rise, eliminating any benefit to consumers while costing the Treasury more than $9 billion, and generate more pollution) and silly (even if she won, HRC won’t be president this summer) as to be worrisome. That HRC now says she doesn’t care that what economists think is even more troubling.”

What does this mean for Us?  Well, We may have to reduce the number of field trips held this summer.  Instead of weekly field trips, We may have to go every other week instead.

Also, Our trip to India to toss babies off of a ledge for luck has also been put on hold.  We may be able to do this locally.

“The Chinese government said Sunday that formerly restive areas were under control and accused the Dalai Lama of trying to harm China’s image ahead of the summer games.”

Yeah, I don’t think China’s image is something of which they should really be proud.  But we all better be careful… they could unlease their weather dominator against the rest of the world.

The PA Legislature is at it a-fuckin-gain… This is also a bit old (not really) and something I haven’t been able to write as concisely as the PGH Comet just has.  Let me sum up my thoughts on the recent incarnation of PA’s idiotic attempt to define marriage:

It’s like PA is now getting sloppy santorum seconds from someone whom I now call Santorum Jr. (I’m not sure whose bright idea this was this time around (Boyd? Gordner?), the idea is unfortunately not new - 2006 was the latest attempt at this.  I’m willing to bet the 17 co-sponsors just held a big gangbang for the bill and there’s plenty of santorum to go around the house floor. I would hate to be the custodial staff of the Senate Judiciary Committee)

Why are people so closed-minded and bigoted toward this? It doesn’t affect them one bit. It’s like they think their marriage is going to be suddenly worth less.

Hello? Most marriages are worthless. It’s hypocrisy at its finest example (who knows, maybe one of the co-sponsors has had an affair or may be another Larry Craig in hiding).  Marriage doesn’t make people stick out tough times more than being not married - a story with which I’m well familiar.

It basically is constitutionally-protected discrimination.

All of their arguments are closed-minded and based on bigotry and / or fear; their own insecurities of some people being just plain different; they go and hide behind religion and morality.  The Comet goes on to trash that hiding spot.

I’d like to also argue that this is primarily the conservative / christian-right that goes on to pervert its sense of purpose of imposing its will on the populace.  The problem here, as the Comet points out, is separation of church and state.  Something many people do not, cannot or flat out refuse to understand.

People fear the “radical muslims” because of their overt tactics. And well we should, but we should also fear the subtle and subversive indocrination of the radical religious-right that spreads the same fear possibly causing more damage over generations of time.   They spread FUD (fear, uncertaintly, doubt) mistrust, hate under a mask of love and peace.  It’s disgusting.  If Pat Robertson’s true self were to be unleashed, I don’t doubt he would engage in a Holy Crusade.  I wonder how dangerous Fred Phelps or Robertson would have been had they grown up under some of the fanaticism in the mid-east.

I had something else planned for the open letters this month, but some happenings from recent events have led Me to change course a bit:

Dear Gerry Ferraro, staunch Clinton Supporter:

You wonderful, wonderful woman: thank you for putting another hole into Clinton’s campaign with your short-sighted remarks. Thank you for the irony that was your slogan in ‘84. American does need new leadership.

“If Obama was a white man, he would not be in this position,” she continued. “And if he was a woman (of any color) he would not be in this position. He happens to be very lucky to be who he is. And the country is caught up in the concept.”

Dear Hillary Clinton:

Please, stop! This is why we can’t have nice things! It’s getting pathetic and more transparent by the day. Stop trying to fool people into voting for you buy mentioning a Clinton / Obama ticket. Everybody knows it will never happen. I know it’s too much to ask, but stop trying to turn the Democratic party into a circus.

Dear Elliot Spitzer:

It could have been worse and I’m dubbing it: Spitzerhook. You could have lost consciousness at the Nutcracker Suite.  (Don’t ask why, but I will admit that when I first read this, I read it as Mark Spitz - the legendary swimmer - and said to myself, “What the christ? We swimmers don’t need hookers to get laid.)

Dear Media:

After tonight, let the Spitzerhook controversy die.  The guy had some sex.  So what? But you won’t because your executive producers are greedy bastards who probably aren’t getting enough at home. For the next two weeks, they will live vicariously through those who are balls-deep in this scandal, wishing they could afford $1,000 / hour prostitutes.

Animated puppet-master Dan Oronato did his best political-spin talk last night in his movement to justify his drink tax on Allegheny County. The Spin was worthy of sound-bites usually spewed from the mouth of George W. Bush. Oronato’s black-and-white rhetoric was so dizzying that it was hard to tell if he suffered from the same double-speak of which Bush is also fond.

Drink tax or Property tax? Let’s see, how about forcing your buddies at the Port Authority to fix their problems? How about having an independent commission appoint someone coherent and not delusional to run the Port Authority in the useless and inept CEO’s stead?

“Onorato is clearly color-blind,” one attendee stated after the hearing, asking not to be named for his job working under the council. “It must be devastating to see only things in pen and ink, like a bad photocopy. I weep for his children. I wonder if he taxes his own children for the milk they drink.” Another chimed in, “[Onorato]’s like a child and it’s either this Tonka Toy or a Transformer, he doesn’t see the budding and mind-opening potential of the Lego sets in the corner. He’s truly a disaster and I fear for Allegheny County.”

Oronato is Schillinger and the County is Beecher; and in this case Oronato clearly has a hard-on for fucking the county further and making it his bitch.

Unfortunately, even those who attempted to stand up to Oronato failed to deliver any ideas of their own. I am of the opinion this was staged by Oronato himself (notice his animated movements, clearly he is pulling strings on his marionettes - or he’s using The Force, which is highly unlikely) or was working along with the callow councilpersons to further establish Oronato’s hard-line stance of the County’s drinking. You know who else had hard-line stances on things and wouldn’t budge… that’s right.

The only thing Oronato would not talk about, surprisingly, was his $5,000 dollar suit. C’MON!

If Oronato attempts to impose his hard-line rule over Us, it may be time to move to Project 2. I hear there is a Committee which has formed to discuss the Moonshine operations and ways to make it safe for human consumption. I do look forward to the Committee’s findings and if it is financially sound, We will move to the next Round.