I grew up in Philadelphia, and remember the media environment of non-stop propaganda against Dr. Barnes, his will, and his foundation, and I knew, just knew, that someday the people behind it would succeed in stealing his singular collection. Well they have, and in Art of the Steal, Director Don Argott shows us how the powerful interests behind Philadelphia’s arts syndicate did it, all legal-like;
Archive for the 'philadelphia local stuff' Category
25
Aug
“The Art of the Steal”
(PHOTO: Coming To A Forward Operating Base Near You, if you are unfortunate enough to be in Iraq.)
Marine-Killing V-22 Osprey Aircraft Sent To Iraq
Time Magazine is reporting that the V-22 Osprey is being deployed to western Iraq for use by Marines there. The V-22, for those of you who haven’t been following the unfolding tragedy for as long as we have, is an aircraft that, much like one of the Transformers of movie fiction, can transform from a helicopter-like rotary-wing aircraft into a fixed wing aircraft, and back again. Except this transformer also turns into, with alarming frequency, a flaming pile of twisted metal and dead Marines.
If you have even the slightest confidence in the wisdom or utility of this, please read here, or here, or, watch this clip from CBS, then tell us with a straight face that you believe this is a good idea.
If this is anybody’s notion of how we should be “supporting the troops” I would have sincere doubts as to that person’s real intentions.
One of the prime movers of the program since its inception was Congresscritter Curt Weldon (R, Boeing Vertol) representing the district in Southeastern PA we all grew up in, who horse-traded and threatened his colleagues in order to get part of the aircraft built in the Boeing facility that dominated his district (in his mind, anyway).
For those of you who aren’t familiar with the estimable congressman Weldon, here’s a shot of him participating in a Washington D.C. ceremony where the Reverend Sun Myung Moon had himself declared the Messiah, complete with an apparent Orthodox Rabbi blowing the Shofar to announce it to the assembled politicians (Moon, er, moonlights as publisher of the Washington Times, an erratically conservative newspaper and neocon propaganda outlet).
Weldon wrangled a key part of the project into the fading Boeing plant at the behest of the unions in exchange for political support. Even though the evil Weldon’s lengthy congressional career was subsequently slain by his own greed (a probe into shady deals involving his daughter’s “consulting company”) as well as reformer-cum-”Bizarro Weldon” Joe “Sleestak” Sestak, Weldon’s pet project V-22 Osprey, aka the flying pig that wouldn’t die, wouldn’t, well, die.
The “program”, as a protracted expenditure of pelf of this nature without successful production of a working piece of ordnance is called, was abandoned long ago by the Army, which was to have shared the cost of it with the much-smaller Marine Corps. Since that time, this flying deathtrap has grown to consume 90% of the Marines’ aircraft procurement budget. We are told that the helicopter it is replacing, the venerable CH-46 (not the also-deadly Hawker Harrier, as some erroneously report, is well past its service life and must be retired, along with 40+ years of experience, improvements, and development. So why then has the army continued to upgrade its fleet of CH-47 Chinooks (sister design to the Sea Knight) rather than replace them?
08
Dec
On Life, and Living
Please Put the Phone Down
One of my oldest and dearest friends is getting married.
After his bachelor dinner, tonight, I heard this song;
Please Put the Phone Down
Broken bottles in the doorway
And I’ve been thinking have it your way
Take the night train right to Jersey
I’ll leave you broken, I’ll leave you wealthy
Oh these eyes
Oh please put the phone down, put the phone down
Lie with me tonight
x2
Oh please put the phone down oh please put the phone down
Beneath the violence when it’s raining
Your words just stare cold and do my head in
Take the fast lane, chase the dream down
Tonight the motorway is like a ghost town
Oh these eyes
Oh please put the phone down, put the phone down
Lie with me tonight
x2
Like you know you should
x4
Oh please put the phone down
I won’t forget you, won’t forget you
See these troubled eyes that smile
This city is a graveyard, it’s a graveyard
Streetlights show us cold and hard
Oh these eyes
Oh please put the phone down, put the phone down
Lie with me tonight
x4
Like you know you should
x4
Oh please put the phone down
(image - the warrioronline.com)
03
Jul
Obama O-verload
We have ridiculed taxpayer-paid campaign materials before, as have many others, so it probably shouldn’t be a surprise that such attempts are made as to try to make them less obvious. Here, on a stretch of I-295 where commuters were just over being tortured by a reconstruction product, is one of the first fruits of the “porkulus” - a sign announcing a new, unspecified, undoubtedly expensive impediment to use;
The Porkulus Comes To South Jersey
But look closely at logo at the lower left - it looks vaguely familiar;
Look Familiar?
- NOTE: I Don’t See An Oiler In This Diagram
Lew Rockwell had a great post this morning (with video goodness!) about “Little Three” union officials slacking off and engaging in personal “business” (shopping, beer-buying) while on the clock. I wrote and related this story to Lew;
Hi Lew,
It is amazing to see a news organization, particularly one in a “union town” covering this story, since such abuses are longstanding and widespread. But there is nothing unique about what the two union reps in the story are accused of.
In 1993 - 1994, I was the safety and health manager of a large construction project ($280M) at a major oil refinery. Being a union plant, of course all of the contractors on the project were forced to hire union “labor” to do all tasks, including some that in a free market would not be done.
Before any work could commence, the contractors on the project had to sign a “project labor agreement”, or PLA, which set forth staffing requirements, work rules, and union jurisdiction. The number of unions involved in the endeavor was mind-boggling. We had carpenters, cement finishers, dockbuilders, electricians, laborers, millwrights, pipefitters, plumbers, teamsters, operating engineers, and one or two others I am sure I am forgetting.
Because the refinery was under a state-imposed environmental compliance deadline for completion, the project ran 2 12-hour shifts per day, 7 days per week to try to meet the deadline. Such mandates and deadlines always present tremendous opportunities for graft. I’ll spare you the details, except at one point the civil contractor was paying a “pipefitter” to make sandwiches for sale to the project personnel, which at 300 - plus workers undoubtedly handsomely enhanced his own personal profit.
Some of the unions even had subgroups, such as one class of operating engineers that ran pumps and generators up to a certain size, others that operated smaller loaders and excavators, another class of operators that ran larger excavators, and finally the “top” class of operating engineers, the crane operators.
The operating engineers’ contract at the time required that all equipment over a certain (arbitrary, low) horsepower be staffed by an operating engineer and an oiler, whether the maintenance regime for the equipment required continuous hand-oiling or not. I will leave it to you to ponder whether modern machinery made in the last 50 years would have such an intense need for maintenance.
Because this requirement undoubtedly caused many objections, an alternate “compliance” method was for the contractor to pay the operating engineer an extra hour for “grease time” (how apt), ostensibly to compensate the operating engineer for coming in an hour early to maintain and prepare his equipment for the start of the shift.
Except, remember, the project operated on 2 12-hour shifts, 7 days per week, which meant that during “grease time” the equipment was still being used by the operator on the previous shift. So we in essence have two operating engineers being paid to work 13 hours per day each, for a total of 26 hours of labor pay per qualifying machine per day.
It gets better. In the construction trades, the union representative is paid a little more than the highest-paid worker on the project. Because of the size of the crew, the project labor agreement mandated that the operating engineers have two project-paid union representatives, a “shop steward”, and a “master mechanic”, who were each paid “grease time’ also.
I’m not entirely sure what the duties of a “shop steward” are, but since the project already had 3 or 4 actual full-time mechanics, the “master mechanic” had few if any remaining visible duties. If you were lucky, you could get hold of him over the project radio system 3 to 4 hours per day at best. Allegedly one would have had better luck looking for him on the golf course most days, weather permitting. Yet because his position was mandated by the PLA, he was being paid 26 hours per day, 7 days per week.
After about 6-8 months of this, it became so embarrassing that the union itself actually put a stop to it, assigning a second-shift “master mechanic”, an extremely able, competent, and hard-working operating engineer who performed all of his union “duties” and operated equipment as well. But this was only one small instance of union abuse on the project.
Somewhere in this sorry tale I should mention that the construction ‘managers’ for the project were Kellogg, Brown, and Root (nee Brown and Root Braun), a particularly ill-named group of losers and no-accounts who actually impeded safety and progress on the project during their tenure.
Please use my alias if you print this.
UPDATE: This was funny.
09
Dec
When The Emperor Moves
On Lew Rockwell’s blog today (YAY!);
re: More Pentagon Homicides
Posted by Lew Rockwell at 12:04 PM
Writes Vince Daliessio:
Saturday was the Army-Navy game here in Philadelphia.. I was taking my son to karate practice at about 9:45 am, when he yells “DAD, LOOK AT THE BIG PLANE!” When I looked, I saw Air Force One approaching from the Southwest and banking steeply above us at no more than 4,000 feet. The plane then swung crazily around, and back West toward the airport. All I could think of was how cavalierly the plane was being operated, and the likely carnage on the ground that would have ensued if the pilot had made a mistake. The old saying “a fish rots from the head” comes to mind. I had little thought for the passengers on board, who were no doubt the instigation for such behavior.
A couple of days prior, we were overflown by squads of military helicopters, and of course during the game we could hear F-18s overhead.
UPDATE: This was the reaction of the father come home to find his family all killed by the government;
“I believe my wife and two babies and mother-in-law are in heaven with God,” Yoon said at a news conference afterward. “Nobody expected such a horrible thing to happen, especially right here, our house.”
Yoon said he bore no ill will toward the Marine Corps pilot who ejected safely before the jet plunged into the neighborhood two miles west of the runway at Marine Corps Air Station Miramar. “I pray for him not to suffer for this action,” Yoon said. “I know he’s one of our treasures for our country.”
Maybe Mr. Yoon is a better man than I - I really don’t know. But my reaction would be much different.
Yet they continue to insist on making it so;
Cop ‘john’ testifies at hearing for ‘mom/daughter’ hookers
The two women touted themselves on the Internet as a sexy mother-daughter team, and at their Northeast Philadelphia home they offered themselves up for sex - at a price, authorities said.
The ad on the craigslist Web site featured the mother, Traci Young, 38, and the daughter, Tami Smith, 22, sitting on a plush sectional couch in tank tops. It read in big, bold letters: “Make the right choice and call us.”
An undercover cop, posing as a john, did just that.
In Municipal Court yesterday, that police officer, Donald Paxton, testified that he had made an appointment to go to the women’s home on Ditman Street near Benner, in Wissinoming, in the early afternoon of Oct. 2.
In the basement, the two women negotiated to have sex with him, including oral sex, for $200, Paxton, according to Assistant District Attorney Richard Fuschino, who spoke after a preliminary hearing in the case.
Paxton testified that Smith told him that he would ” ’start with mom and finish with me [the daughter],’ ” the prosecutor recounted.
At the end of the hearing, Judge Joseph J. O’Neill held Young for trial on all charges, including prostitution, criminal use of a communication facility and conspiracy.
First, this is called ENTRAPMENT, an immoral but increasingly popular tactic among the jackbooted thug community.
Second, WHOSE BUSINESS IS IT WITH WHOM AND UNDER WHAT CONDITIONS THEY HAVE SEX ?????
These “laws” are unconstitutional, immoral, and arbitrary.
It is perfectly legal for a woman to offer her favors for a $200 meal at Buddakan, but not for $200 cash. Gross.
The cynic in me tells me that one reason for this is that the elites don’t like middle-class people getting their freak on the way they themselves do.
And since middle-class people can’t afford mistresses, or to join high-end clubs for that sort of thing, they have to hire them in per diem, which the elites then have outlawed.
Am I off base here?
SCENE: 6:00 am, Husband and wife in bed. Three year old daughter enters, climbs in between them. Newscast is playing on clock radio.
Announcer: “Mayor Michael Nutter begins a series of town meetings to explain the service cuts necessary to try to repair a $1 billion dollar city government budget deficit.”
Husband: “How does a city government roll up a billion dollar budget deficit?”
Wife: “I’m not really sure.”
Husband: “It comes down to bad government. The government of the City of Philadelphia has become a malignant tumor on the body politic.”
Three-year-old daughter: “No!”
Husband: “No?”
Three-year-old daughter: “No!”
Husband: “Then what do you think is the cause of the billion-dollar deficit?”
Three-year-old daughter: “Candy!”
Husband:”Candy?”
Three-year-old daughter: “Candy, yummy candy!”
(SCENE ENDS)
Are you listening, Mayor?
I’m on a mailing list for Guided By Voices, a 4-years-defunct band. What keeps it going, I think, are the people who make up the Postal Blowfish community - largely thoughtful, earnest folks.
I’m feeding an off-off-topic discussion (I didn’t start it, honest) about the current financial calamity, and the discussion turned to government-backed and subsidized mortgages;
David;
> But to scuttle the whole system would also keep people from buying houses> who can repay the loans. Put the crooks in jail, but leave the> baby in the bathtub.
Dennis;
Yes, our first house loan was through fannie may. They put us through the credit check wringer and we had to take out mortgage insurance. We paid our way out of that and were able to refinance at a better rate and get the mortgage ins. dropped. These programs can work but people got too greedy and home buyers were fucked in those hot markets like vegas and arizona. A good friend of mine is sitting on a mortgage that is prob twice what the house will auction for in vegas.
My rejoinder;
One thought on this;
My parents, in 1964, purchased a house. A little run-down, not in the best neighborhood, but good enough. They paid $7000 for it. My dad was a pattern maker in a machine shop, my mom was, well, my mom (NOTE: No disrespect was intended to my mom, after raising 5 of us full-time she has gone on to two degrees and two entirely separate careers.)
My uncle financed the purchase, I think for 5 years at 5% simple interest. It was a duplex, and the upstairs rent paid back the mortgage in that time. I remember the day in first grade when my mom said I was getting my own room, after the renters had vacated (it was the same day I came down with the mumps, silver linings and all that.)
Fast forward 35 years to 1999. We have all moved out, except for my brother. My parents have moved, a couple of steps up the nice-neighborhood ladder (the old neighborhood, now home to numerous subsidized renters, has moved a couple steps down), and my brother, an industrial mechanic, buys the house from them at a heavily-discounted $84,000 or so, 12 times what they paid for it. Even with a healthy discount from market (this was before the boom), he had to get an FHA loan to make the deal.
What happened? There is simply no way that house in real terms was worth 12x what it sold for in 1964. The ‘magic’ of inflation, plus demand artificially stimulated by government-backed and / or subsidized mortgages, helped put a very modest home outside of the budget of a working person without help. It benefitted my parents very modestly. For the first time in 30 years, they had a mortgage. Their new crib consumed much more than the cash from the old home.
I’m not saying I have all the answers. But government interference in any market carries costs. Are they too high?
vini
Another Shining Moment For The City That Can’t Stop Spending
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.