When it really happens: SHTF...

[Surpmil]

Interesting isn't it, what power does to people?

But when you're special, you're really special.

During his time in office, he eliminated the "capital stock tax," which is a tax on the value of a business's assets.

Fancy that?

Seems the state employee pension funds didn't do too well off the guvnor the first time round.

[Deleted]

What proportion of PA voters vote?

[browningautorifle]

This is almost as good as our little drama teacher whose mum got $250K from a "charity" for talking a few times, and who coincidentally was then going to give the same "charity" $950m to organize some volunteering.

You're going to get our thread closed...

[Ovidio]

Yep... That is a risk.
Anyway, I'm glad to be back home.
Traveling this way is not funny at all...

[jon_norstog]

Italy is looking pretty good compared to the US now. Looks like you guys took care of business and the worst is over. This was in the New York Times today.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/23/o...ronavirus.html

Buon giorno!

jn

[Surpmil]

You're going to get our thread closed...

As a career service member Jim you would know that if we insist on drawing a matter to the attention of the authorities, they will be compelled to take notice of it. Whereas if we keep quiet, we allow them to exercise their discretion and good sense, often to the benefit of all.

What was the old saying, "No names, no pack drill"?

We've had lots of posts about politics in PA, so if that was a problem, I think we wold have heard by now. If you think Canadian politics are the hot-button topic, well, I've removed the reference thereto.

But if you or anyone is concerned about something I post, you are welcome to send me a polite PM anytime saying why you think it should be changed or deleted because we all have an interest in keeping things amicable around here.

[Ovidio]

Just got my next trip to Germany confirmed.
Not glad at all...
I’m getting lazy

[Ovidio]

Italy is looking pretty good compared to the US now. Looks like you guys took care of business and the worst is over. This was in the New York Times today.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/23/o...ronavirus.html

Buon giorno!

jn

Hi Jon,
thanks.
Yes, we did quite well. I would say, in spite of the central government.
Lombardy, the region which got struck the hardest, is governed by the opposition parties, like Veneto.
They started bad, got a huge blast but then recovered. All of their own.
The government just kept criticising them, but did not help.
Once they got through, they were investigated for the massacre that occured in the retirement homes.
Now it comes to surface that the ministry of health told them to do so...to send covid cases there...
It is a weird situation.
What I could personally observe is that the Italian people behaved in an admirable way.
They observed rules and restrictions more and better than in many other countries. I was, and still am, surprised, positively so.
That is a good thing under a certain point of view, but I know my mates. My fear is that, should this situation repeat itself, few people would draw from the lessons learned and would just comply. That is the paved road to slavery...
I still hope that the deep, anarchic nature of the Italian people will save us here, but things do change, and I’m not so sure anymore.
From my privileged point of view, this situation allowed me, for the first time in exactly 25 years, to stay home for a while.
I could slow down, and after they lifted the complete lockdown, I even started enjoying being home with my wonderful family.
I hope everything will get back to normal, but I learned to live in a different way and will keep a watchful eye against the exaggerations of the past.
Concerning the NYT, I know them well enough to know that talking good about Italy is just a means to attack Trump.
Not my business, but I don’t trust them at all.
Ciao!

[Aragorn243]

It's the New York Times, what do you expect. The US is not worse off than Europe except where certain governors and mayors are making life miserable.

They want to blame this on Trump but he really has no control over it. That is NOT how our government is designed to work. It can work that way but seeing how things have gone for the last 11 years, I would not venture that would be very successful in solving many problems. The President's primary job believe it or not is international relations. You can read the Constitution to see where his powers lie and where the Constitution does not grant the Federal government or the President certain powers, it's the State's responsibility. So this call for the President to have taken charge over this is a bogus one. The moment he would make the attempt, every Democrat governor in the nation would scream bloody murder and most of the Republican governors would as well although there would at least be some coordination there. Federalizing an event such as this is possible but it's rarely been done.

So each state goes it's own way. Some failed miserably, New York, New Jersey were the worst, Pennsylvania really didn't have Covid that bad but the economic toll has been rough. The media is pushing this idea that these southern states are in just horrible shape when they are not even a 10th as bad as New York was/is and New Jersey is even worse. Even PA is much worse than the four they are pointing out now. It's a joke to anyone that actually investigates these things which obviously I do.

The governor had all sorts of people out inspecting restaurants, something like 1400 in one day and issued 45 WARNINGS, because he has no authority to actually do anything about it. He's still withholding the federal funds from the one county that really ticked him off. They filed a lawsuit yesterday or the day before. Only county in the state he did this with. If you remember, he couldn't do it to mine because our county is so large we get our funding directly from the Federal government. He has zero control over it. Or I expect he'd be playing the same petty games with us.

What's sad is there are a lot of people fully content to hide in their basements and praise him for saving their lives. As you can see from the numbers I posted the other day, not too many people under retirement age that needed saving.

I just got a phone survey that was an utter joke. They asked me three questions, all about the pandemic and the Federal government's response and all three questions were worded so ridiculously you had to answer in the manner they wanted. I didn't because I know every question was a lie. This is how things work here. Fake polls, a lot of lies, rules with no substance and life is going on for most people.

[muffett.2008]

Ovidio, I can agree with you on spending more family time, we are together much more now than pre dogs disease, only thing I miss is the close contact of family, spread all over the country.

[CINDERS]

Probably never happen Ovidio but would not mind putting some black top under the wheels with ya would probably use my Super XX Blackbird otherwise if I had my V4S Duck you'd say "Now where did the CINDERS go"!! mind you I'd love to rock up to Borgo Panigale with my V4 so I could visit the place of its manufacture.........