While you're waiting, be sure to read the old newspaper in the window, about when their root beer barrel blew up and wrecked the place!

I have a copy of a book about a post-zombie world. Pittsburgh is one of the few surviving cities because they were protected by the rivers, making it easier to defend. It was a good concept. Too bad it was so poorly written, I couldn't get through it. (Tons of grammatical and spelling errors.)

On the back of the door, so you see it as you exit the restroom, there's a little sign that says, "Is Kennywood Open?"

A few weeks ago I was talking to a fellow member of our hobby group, and realized the shirt I had been wearing that morning was 7 years older than she was.

She's 23. I bought that shirt new.

There's rarely anyone in the fire station, since it's all volunteer. I service their air compressor, so I have the door code since Lieutenant LaMont won't open the door for me.

(He's a cat.)

Penn Township used to have a police chief named Ed Schmuck.

He was the Chief Schmuck of the force.

I wonder if they have the National number (1-800-222-1222) or the Pittsburgh Poison Control number (412-681-6669). I have a bunch with the local number.

In EMT school our instructor taught us the local number with a mnemonic; "They're Sick, they Ate One, it made them so Sick Sick Sick they flipped."

Learned that in 1998. Never used it, still remember it.

When we had to replace 30+ school bus plates because they changed the designation prefix (from BA "BUS" to SB "SCHOOL BUS"), I donated them to a community art group that made birdhouses out of them. (Wooden house, plate is bent to make the roof.)

“Many that live deserve death. And some that die deserve life. Can you give it to them? Then do not be too eager to deal out death in judgement." -Gandalf

Remember Cameron Todd Willingham. He was convicted on 3 counts of murder for the deaths of his children in a house fire. Most experts that reviewed the case agreed that it was an accidental fire, not arson, but Gov. Perry was making a run for President and wanted to look "tough on crime". He executed Willingham anyway.

I went to school with, and lived on the same street as, a multiple-murderer. I'm friends with someone who was best friends with one of his victims. He was eligible for the death penalty, but was given life without parole instead. It'll be 35 years this summer, and he still sits in prison. His punishment has been far worse than if he had been executed.

Just having the eyes on it will reduce shrink. There have been studies about how people will behave more honestly if they think they're being watched, even by eyes painted on the wall.

That thing followed me around in the Harrisburg Martin's store when I was visiting friends a few weeks ago. I just grabbed some gouda cubes and got out of its range.

I drove a school bus, 1998-2003. I had the "bad" kids, who went to the "bad kid" school. Justin was one of them.

Justin was 6, a kindergartener with freckles and a mop of red hair. The first day I picked him up, he was wearing overalls and a striped shirt, like Chucky. I never found out what he had done to get sent to that place at age 6.

Every morning, I would pull up and set my red lights/stop sign, make sure traffic had stopped, then motion for him to cross. He had to cross the opposite lane and walk in front of the bus.

One morning, same routine, traffic is stopped, and Justin started across. I don't know why, but that morning he stopped on the yellow line, turned, and waved to his mom. He continued to the bus, and just as he got to my right front corner a silver pickup with a ladder rack passed my bus on the shoulder. It went past so fast I barely saw it, then it disappeared around a bend.

Justin slowly walked around the corner of the bus and climbed the steps, face pale and eyes huge.

I asked him, "You OK, bud? "

He slowly nodded, then continued to his seat. He was unusually quiet for the drive to school.

That little guy was barely the height of my (mini bus) hood. If he hadn't stopped, he would have rounded the corner just as that truck passed my doors. That was 24 years ago, and Justin is 30 now, but I can still see the shock on his face from that close call.

I service fire equipment, so every May I stay in Towanda for a week. The fanciest gas station in Pennsylvania is the Dandy Mart near Wysox Fire Station. It was the Piollet Mansion, built in 1971.

Are you at the Marie Antoinette Overlook near Towanda? It's a beautiful bit of country.

They're supposed to be removed within 5 days of Election Day. After that, some municipalities consider them "abandoned property".

Amazon's building is up, the parking lot is paved, and they're doing the landscaping. It should be open pretty soon.

The Westmoreland Museum of Art in Greensburg is a hidden treasure. It has some incredible pieces in its collection .

My friend had a CVST (like a stroke, but in a vein instead of an artery) at age 20. During recovery, she said it was like taking every word you'd ever learned, writing them on little pieces of paper, throwing them in a huge pile, then trying to piece them together to form sentences. Sometimes she would be asked what an object was. She KNEW it was a cup, she could THINK "Cup", but she couldn't SAY Cup.

She recovered, and went on to get a Masters in Microbiology.

I'm glad your friend survived her aneurysm. That's what killed Mythbuster Grant Imihara.

This guy LITERALLY believed that god changed the weather patterns over Iraq and Kuwait to benefit the US forces during Operation Desert Storm.

There's an episode of the "Qanon Anonymous" Podcast that covers Mastriano's lunacy. It's frightening how delusional this guy is.

Q-Pilled Midterms

Same. Ours were mailed 10/10 but never arrived. Had to drive to the courthouse and tell them it didn't show. They cancelled my mail ballot, gave me a new one, and I filled it out there. Took longer to find parking than the whole process.

>Many fans know this song as "Hail to the Lion," even though that is not technically the name of the song.

It's called "Nittany Lion Fight Song" on the sheet music.

If you're a Rookie auditioning for the Blue Band, every practice ends with the "Rookie Run", where all the potential new members do a lap around the practice field while the other band members sing the song to them. That way, by the end of band camp, everyone should know the words.

The thing is, nobody is teaching elementary school kids that stuff anyway, other than "Jimmy has two moms, and that's OK" type of thing. It's entirely fabricated by politicians trying to scare people, and amplified by Fox News/ OANN.

Mastriano has been pretty consistent with this anti-LGBTQ stance.

"Mastriano has not taken a public position on enshrining nondiscrimination protections based on sexual orientation and gender identiy into law. His campaign did not respond to a request for comment. In July, he was part of a unanimous vote to remove “acts of homosexuality” from the Pennsylvania crimes code.

In an August radio appearance, he attacked Gov. Tom Wolf’s efforts to discourage conversion therapy, saying Shapiro and Wolf want to “take over your kids and indoctrinate them.” Such therapy purports to make queer people straight, and has been rejected by the American Psychological Association.

In a 2001 thesis, he warned of a left-wing “Hitlerian Putsch” and that “aberrant sexual behavior in the ranks,” such as homosexuality, was part of an assault on the military designed to make way for “a larger cultural transformational agenda.”

Mastriano voted for a bill that would ban instruction on gender identity and sexual orientation in early elementary classrooms. In a tweet, he likened LGBTQ-inclusive education to “grooming,” echoing homophobic right-wing rhetoric.

In August, he accused the state Department of Education of encouraging “Gender Theory Indoctrination,” a term used by right-wing lawmakers to attack schools that acknowledge and affirm students’ gender and pronouns or have any curricula related to gender identity.

Shapiro’s campaign spokesperson Manuel Bonder responded to questions about the attorney general’s stance on the instruction ban bill by saying the legislature needs to stop “wasting time and taxpayer dollars on these attempts to bully LGBTQ Pennsylvanians.”

Mastriano said in a 2018 radio interview that same-sex marriage should not be legal and that he favors “traditional marriage.”

“I’m not a hater for saying that,” he continued. “It’s been like that for 6,000 years.”

During that same interview, he said he does not believe same-sex couples should be able to adopt children.

Mastriano voted for a bill that would ban transgender girls and women from participating on teams that correspond with their gender (legislation that Wolf vetoed in July) and has said he’d implement such a ban in his first 100 days in office through an executive order.

In his Republican nomination victory speech, he pledged to restrict transgender people’s access to restrooms, saying “on day one, you can only use the bathroom that your biology, anatomy says.”

SOURCE - https://www.whyy.org/articles/pa-election-2022-governor-race-mastriano-shapiro-lgbtq-rights

Do you listen to the Skeptic's Guide to the Universe Podcast? (This was one of the choices on "Science or Fiction" recently.)

The way the stupid laws are written, you can pretty much say anything about someone if they are a "public person". If they're a celebrity, politician, or sports star, they're fair game to whatever horrible thing anyone wants to say about them, even if it's blatantly false.

I guess since they kept the leg, he WAS amputated from it, instead of it being amputated from him.