School Doesn’t Want Blacks

Don’t you just love it when you put on some oldies orsee a vintage car ion the summer and it transports you back to a simpler time in the 50s and 60s that just makes you feel happy?

Then there are claims like this (Click Here to read the article by The Associated Press as appearing on WPXI.com) that happen around the summer time transporting you back to a bitter time in the 50s and 60s … and make you say “What the heck were they thinking???”. It also let’s you know racism is still around.   The deal is that Kiski School let go it’s basketball coach because a black basketball team was not “within it’s mission”.  Slightly embarrassing for the coach, don’t you think?  Now, even more embarrassing for the school.  Keep in mind these are still “alleged” claims, but even at that can destroy an establishments reputation quickly.

Temporarily, we’ll award The Kiski School a tentative “Clueless Award” until the rest of the story comes out in the wash.

-SWB

PS – As a preparatory school, you’d thunk they’d be able to think before they speak.

The Micro and Mini Car Dilemna

First they praise them as the answer to our fuel issues, then they chastise them as the biggest safety issue of the day – the is the mini car.

It’s not the change of mind that amazes SWB … it’s the timing. Just when GM and Chrysler are headed for bankruptcy … very fuel efficient micro and mini cars (not to mention space efficient) now become unsafe. Who says they are unsafe? The media, not the labs testing the cars in crashes. The labs just provide base data. You can determine that by looking at what car companies advertise where, who is saying what about the safety, and when that opinion changed. And, yes … this time SWB is accusing the media of selling out. I own one of these cars – the Honda Fit. I also have owned since 1999 the predecessor of that model – the Honda Civic CX hatchback. I’ve been involved in minor wrecks to both the front and back of my 1997 Honda Civic CX hatchback. A friend of mine is an insurance adjuster, so I ask him to estimate the speed in any wreck I am involved in just as a second opinion in case the insurance company tries to prove otherwise. The front end hit to my car as at 11 mph, the hit to the back was at about 10 mph. Both cars that my small Honda made contact with were mid-sized American cars. Both of the American mid-sized cars had thousands more in damage than my Honda did – and they were supposed to be safer because of their size and weight. My Honda required no repairs other than touch-up paint.

Here is what is comes down to. If you do a crash test where you take a mid-sized vehicle slam it into a mini car at 100 mph you will total the mini car car. If you take a touring sized car and slam it into a mid-sized at 100 mph you will total the mid-sized car. If you take a one ton Econoline van and slam it into a touring sized car at 100 mph you will total the touring sized car. With that basic logic , the only reason to really push the un-safeness of the mini cars and not push the benefits of minimal fuel usage is to get readers and viewers to go back to buying the mid-sized cars. Consider that on average they make 50% more profit on mid-sized cars than the mini cars, thus helping the media’s advertising customers sell their mid sized cars that are sitting on lots due to their lower fuel economy environment issues. It’s a little obvious when you first praise something, then you chastise it … you are doing it for reason. Against the popular belief of the media’s P.R. people – Americans are not that clueless.

If you want additional safety on the road, you push for more people to buy mini cars. Therefore if you have more mini cars on the road, then the results of accidents are less due to them being mini car to mini car. You don’t try to present a false negative safety rating by presenting very skewed crash tests.

Here are a few articles on the crash tests (please look up more to determine the validity of them yourself):

• Click Here for an article on Yahoo!Finance from before the mid-sized car makers were going to have to proceed on to possible bankruptcy.

Here are ones from after:

• Click Here for an Associated Press article by Ken Thomas as seen on WPXI.com
• Click Here for article from MSN Money with video
• Click Here for an article from USA Today by James R Healey.

Note: These example article are just picked from search engine results to be fair. They were not picked in any way to accused their specific publishers of selling out to their paaying advertisers. SWB does encourage you to see who does advertise in the media that is publishing a review (on a crash test or and item) before taking that review as black and white. If that review is skewed, like the mini car crash tests, you need to do additional research.

We are going to give the media a minor clueless award for “selling out” to the mid-sized car vendors to keep advertising income, but not a full one for having their hearts in an attempt to save an American industry (along with themselves).

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-SWB

PS – Crash test are valuable information for deciding on a vehicle to buy, but they need to be viewed along side other pertinent information. If not, they only serve two benefits:

1. To sell cars for a specific industry and the oil companies
2. To give the insurance companies reason to raise your rates

Murtha gets away with offending the military

Now, I was trying to stay away from military postings to make sure SWB didn’t look like it was turning into one direction for the blog … but John Murtha just happened no be on my TV screen this morning courtesy of WPXI.  Murtha, like everyone else has a right to his opinion. To SWB calling a Marine a cold blooded killer before being proven so, and using his official position to avoid a lawsuit basically where he slandered a solder without proven cause is disgusting … even if it is his opinion.  We have rights in place in this country to make us better, not to allow us to abuse others.  Murtha’s story is something I would expect to hear out of China, not the United States.

So, John ….. we send out the latest Clueless Award to you (with a temptation to actually spend the money on getting one made and send it to you) for being such a clueless jerk – and since we said that while “reporting” on the issues, I guess that means we can use our “press immunity” if you ever try to sue us.

Even though you won the court case, you could have still apologized at the same level you lashed out on the Marine.

The sad thing is, Murtha does give free speech a bad name … something many a Marine has died for.

Click Here for the last story by Nedra Pickler from The Associated Press as it appeared on WPXI Pittsburgh about the John Murtha case.

-SWB

PS – Mr. Murtha … China is calling … we know your heart is really there.

Richard Poplawski – an issue that needs dealt with

More on the issue:

Three officers unnecessarily died due to an idiot with issues. Do I know he had issues – yes. How? Let’s see: 1. He was walking around at 1am in ony his pajama pants, 2. The PFA against him from a former girlfriend, 3. His stating to multiple people that he was distressed about losing his job, 4.The fact that he was worried about Obama taking away guns, 5. He began stockpiling guns after being kicked out of the marines because he thought the police could no longer protect us with hte bd economy. Well, all he did on the last point was give Obama more firepower to take away guns even to those very responsible. After shooting officers, Poplawski held off officers from get to their wounded – even enemies in a way don’t go that low. His Mother is now actually threatening the Post-Gazette with a lawsuit if they don’t stop reporting.

The Pittsburgh Police and Swat team showed an amount of restraint not seen anywhere. Consider the amount of well placed snipers and good shots they probably had on the incident that did not open fire when Poplawski finally gave up and was brought out. All of these officers, not just he ones that died, need to be commended and decorated as fully as possible.

With everyone else involved with Poplawski – did anyone bother to speak up – except on he news shots?? Think about it – where I grew up, if I did anything remotely like what was mentioned about Poplawski (walking at 1 am in my PJ pants), I would have been soon greeted by a police officer in a car asking me it if I needed help (or taking me home and telling my family I needed help). Am I blaming the community? No, but I am noting that we have gone to a lifestyle of too much about the individual, and not enough about the community we live it. Staying out of people’s business is good – but ignoring dangerous buildups in the community is worse than not being liked for showing concern. Family ignores family now too … this isn’t a good thing.

Is there a possibility that Poplawski asked for help and it was ignored? … sure. He was out of a job, so that means the possibility of not having medical coverage for mental health issues (which he obviously had many) – and if he confided in friends, there is the issue of those friends just not wanting to deal with it.

Here links to current articles for a complete overview:

The Post-Gazette article by Jon Smitz

KDKA Channel 2 Pitsburgh

WTAE Channel 4 Pittsburgh (more info on Richard P)

On The Officers from The Tribune-Review

Do the following if you can:

• Pray for all of the families involved (even the Poplawski’s – how would you feel if your family name was all over the news associated with something this intense).
• Drop few flowers at a police station in memory of the officers.
• Get to know your community again and actually listen to the people in it.
• Leave all involved families alone.
• Let the police and the courts sort this one out – they have proven they can handle this by the restraint they showed on the scene. If to many rumors and false info’s get created, it could harm the outcome of the situation greatly allowing those officer’s deaths to be in vain.

-SWB

PS – “Self” isn’t everything … which is the issues that really needs to be dealt with.

** All comments are welcome for information sharing – anything hateful or potentially untrue will not be approved.

Federal Judge supports a soldier by shafting KBR

Kudos from SWB to Judge Nora Barry Fischer for not dismissing an electrocution case against infamous KBR Inc. This allows the case to follow through for the soldier, making KBR slightly unhappy (and rightly so).

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Anyway … Click Here for an article on the issue with links to prior articles from WPXI.

-SWB

Ps – If you can find that Judge’s e-mail, send her a thank-you for supporting an American soldier by not dropping the case. While you have e-mail up, send one to KBR letting them know how dishonorable it is to try to get over on a soldier who puts their life in harms way to protect our citizens.

Conficker Virus – Gotcha!! – April Fools!!!

For those who haven’t heard, it’s virus time again. The main one you have all heard about is the Conficker Worm. There are of course other minor ones, but this is the “biggie” that’s making all the news. Some security experts are playing it down, and some are playing it up. I guess it depends on who needs more exposure in the media at this point in their life. From SWB’s point of view … the best thing is prevention. Shut off your peer to peer, limit downloading, etc, etc – and the most important … use common sense (if you don’t have any, find some).

Click Here for a current article from USA Today on the worm and Click Here for the sans.org security news site. Sans is the best site for information on any IT security threats.

*Update: Here is the WPXI article on the subject

-SWB

PS – As an IT manger, if your security team tells you to not do things at work over the next few days … listen. If not, you could lose your job over wanting to play the online version of Asteroids because you let in a virus. Stupid, huh?

The First Days Of Spring in Pittsburgh

The first days of spring in Pittsburgh are always unique. They are never the same, and never come in the same way. Personally I think this is a sign of God having humor. Here is my tale of how this season came to play with Pittsburgh today.

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It’s the first days of Spring and I imagine to see many a thing,

many kids at play with birds in the air gliding on a wing.

—–

Dreaming of this Spring scene while laying in bed,

I was thinking of flowers blooming early and turning a bright pretty red.

—–

Following a whim I caught in my dream,

I dressed in T-shirt and shorts wearing a smile that just seemed to beam.

—–

I ran down the stairs, and whipped open the door,

to a Spring sight I though that I could adore.

—–

But the only thing I saw could not have made me frown more,

it looked like a lost Pittsburgh river rat clawing at my door.

—–

The pond was still covered with ice and my shirt apparently thin,

I screamed out to God, “this isn’t the way it was in my PS3 Sim!!”

—–

The only thing flying in the grim cold at this time,

was the WPXI traffic copter covering a three car pile up in it’s prime.

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It’s supposed to be warm, happy, and sunny …

but no matter where I look there isn’t a single bunny.

—–

The only thing to be seen blooming were the pothole flowers,

Turning the expensive cars into over-sized earth plowers.

—–

A beautiful Spring movie scene did not greet me this day,

It seemed that the glorious Pittsburgh weather just pushed it the other way.

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-SWB

PS – Welcome to Spring in Pittsburgh … get your shovels back out!

Review: Lunch At The Hofbrauhaus Pittsburgh

First thing … remember this review was written after consuming 1 liter of Dunkel therefore SWB takes no responsibility for offending those that don’t like German food or beer, but we do feel sorry for you if you don’t. BTW – click on the picture to go to their site.

What we had: Bierwurst on a bun w/fries, and Black Forest Cake for desert topping it all off with 1 liter of Dunkel

Atmosphere: Way better than the Newport site. 5 out of 5 for authenticity

Beer quality: Extremely accurate even with probably not sitting as long as needed due to opening. If it gets better they will be putting some Pittsburgh micros out of business.

Service: Excellent at all levels

Summary: I grew up with German beers, so Dunkel (the darker beer) is probably what I will stick with. The other brews (lights, lagers, etc) had everyone raving about them at the bar near where I was sitting. The food was cooked very well, and the selection I took was no different than eating lunch at my German grandma’s. As fat as the atmosphere – it’s a German beer house … you will make friends.

Hofbrauhaus Pittsburgh finally open!! Beer Connoisseurs applaud!

Capture from Hofbrauhaus Pittsburgh website – click to go there

We’ve been waiting for it (for a long time), but it’s here – Hofbrauhaus Pittsburgh. It is one of only three in the nation and will be brewing beer to the German Purity Law, Reinheitsgebot. In layman’s term, that basically means it’s really good.

Make sure you get the Hofbräuhaus pretzels and bier cheese – a very big tradition.

We’ll be down there to review the place, but we have experienced the site in Newport On The Levee in Kentucky …. and it was perfect. It took me back to the weekend dinners we had at my Grandma’s house (the German side of the family), and instantly reminded me of the vintage pictures my Grandfather had of the old beer halls in Germany when he lived there.

Check out the HB Pittsburgh website, and the WPXI article on the opening.

The new HB site is in SouthSide Works.

Update: Click here for a more detailed article on the opening from the Post-Gazette. Also check out the article from the PG on beer hall etiquette featuring Eckhard Kurbjuhn (the German brewmaster at Haufbrauhaus-Pittsburgh)

-SWB

PS – For those new to German Beers (real ones), then tend to be strong – so if you are planning on drinking more than two bring a designated driver and a digital camera so your friends can catch a snapshot of you turning various shades of green. If you get a few good snaps – send ’em in, we’ll post them here 🙂