When it comes to pollution, Philly is #1

Actually, we're number 11 according to a 2013 report by the American Lung Association.

But the good news is that this means one can say that Philadelphia is "Dickensian" and be rightish. Although you'll probably still sound pretentious, like that editor guy on The Wire.

Angrycat sez: Yep, that's a picture of my butt.

Philly wins the homeless and hungry city contest

Philadelphia was number one in a study ranking food insecurity for the years 2009 and 2010. In 2010, estimates are that over 30% of families here didn't have enough food. According to a 2012 hunger and homelessness survey, Philly beat out 25 other major U.S. cities when it came to unmet needs for food and shelter.

Angrycat sez: OOOOOOOO a stack of foods

As I don't have thumbs, I shall attempt to nuzzle these cans open.

Well, fuck.

Get out the bathroom and open these cans, you lazy bastard. You have something in your eye? Well I have nothing in my stomach. Get the fuck out here.

Corbett's 2013-14 Budget: find every revenue stream and murder it in the face.

PA Guv Corbett, gazing at what he has wrought with his billion and a half cut to education (which has resulted in a shitstorm of closures and coming labor war) has made the wise decision to double down on austerity measures.  I mean fuck it, we just need people to put the fracking pipes in the ground, right?

So he has announced that his 2013-14 budget will contain a 30% reduction in corporate taxes, resulting in a yearly budget loss of 800 million.   But then he's doing it because we've been really taxing those guys too much I mean no this is actually the tenth year in a row corporations in PA get a tax break.  Add all those corporate tax breaks up?  You get a yearly loss of 3 billion.  Yay.


Angrycat sez:  I look at them numbers and show them my BUTT

Mandatory ultrasounds: close your eyes and think of Corbett

So, back in 2012, PA Guv Tommy Corbett was out selling the merits of a state bill that ended up dying in the legislature. Said bill would have required women seeking abortions to undergo an ultrasound of the fetus. Under the bill, the doctor would be required to take notes as to whether and how much the woman was making eye contact with the ultrasound images. Corbett commented that he found this procedure unproblematic, given that women could always shut their eyes, thereby depriving the state of its ability to fuck with a woman's head. "That is, during stage one of the program," continued Corbett. "Stage two employs stabbing the woman with a stick every time she looks down. We're not sure about stage three yet, but I can promise that it will involve robots."

The reason these comments are back in the news in '13 is that Corbett is running for re-election and most residents of the state would vote for a pile of manure over Tommy, 'cause, hey, fertilization.  And these comments make him look like a douche down to like the molecular level of douchiness. So he wants to make clear that those comments were out of context.  It's unclear what additional context would make the comments more palatable; as is Corbett is sounding like the fool at the party who makes a rape joke and then spends about fifteen minutes explaining in a high-pitched voice why the joke isn't really about rape.

Angrycat sez: Fuck you with your picking me up to do God knows what; try anything and I'll tear your hand off

Your are going to do WHAT to my WHAT

Maybe playing dead is the best approach here.

Fuck it, that hand is coming off.

Divorce, PA style: shoot off your ring finger

A PA prison guard attempted to end his marriage with Extreme Prejudice by shooting his ring finger when he couldn't take it off. 


Remember, guns don't shoot off ring fingers. Drunken federal prison guards with marital problems do.

In other news related to well not love but perhaps masturbatory habits, Philly DA Seth Williams's twitter account was following two sex bots, @ratemylatin and @ratemyebony.  Well, hey, it's not like jerkin' it is illegal, so everybody's happy, right?

Angrycat sez: I've never even had sex. Fuck outta here.

Pennsylvania Poop

A truck overturned near Bellwood, PA, spilling seventeen tons of human shit all over the place.  It was a snowy road, and poo is potent stuff, so perhaps it was an effective de-icer.  But then we are having a warming trend, so one way or another that's a large amount of melting snow/poo slurry.

Yrs truly knows that you, Gentle Reader, would not be satisfied with one poop story alone.  NEVER FEAR.  For it turns out that in that wackadoodle private expedition to Mars in 2018, the idea of poop being used as a radiation deflector is being flung about.  You're welcome.


Angrycat sez:  Okay, dude, like, what the fuck, I'm looking at this and seeing three or four turds here that probably belong to that annoying other cat.   And you expect me to squat in this?  FUCK YOU it's Sunday it's past twelve scoop up this shit.  Wait.  You did NOT just take a picture of me next to this disgusting box, did you?  If you put that on the internet, hey, I'm not threatening, but you do treasure waking up with your face still attached, yes?  Don't look at me like that, do your fucking job and don't you dare use this photo.

Corbett: Gimme PRESENTS and you can frack everybody and everything

Here's some context for this: Corbett has given drillers of natural gas carte blanche to poison water and people in PA. The fracking industry is paying very little for the privilege of destroying lives and the environment of the Keystone State (then there's the whole absence of meaningful regulation, but that's another issue). One estimate of how much PA will lose over a twenty-year period by not requiring frackers to pay royalties? 48 billion. Hey, remember that one and a half billion that Tommy cut from the education budget? Which is leading to the closing of thirty schools in Philly and probably a wildcat strike later in the year, as the district is like, work more for much less pay and oh we can't even give you access to water fountains I MEAN FUCKING WATER FOUNTAINS and you know how all of this could have been avoided? Taxing the fracking industry.

New York, which shares the Marcellus Shale with PA, is WOW applying things like reason and caution to whether fracking should commence (although one douche is going on about the 'jihad' against the fracking industry, which, I guess, establishes that no place is idiot-free). And in debating the issue, the legislature is like, well, in Pennsylvania people are dying and stuff so guess that's what when there's no regulation or oversight and FOR THE LOVE OF GOD WE CAN'T BE LIKE PA. And therefore no fracking in New York for at least two years more. So that NY can study more PA's state of fucked-upness with regards to fracking.

Maybe this is how people who think thoughts feel in Texas or Arizona; this sense of shame that arises from having true wackadoodles (Perry, Brewer) in charge of their state. Kind of like, you work in a cubicle farm and this dude is farting loud and stinky farts and other folks know it's not YOU but you are in the same vicinity of the smell of shit, so it's a big downer, both in terms of smelling shit and also being associated with the smell of shit.

So it turns out that during Tommy Corbett's campaign for guv, he accepted a buncha stuff from folks who wanted stuff from the hot mess that is the Corbett administration. One big gift-giver was this fellow Moran, who was under investigation by the state for issues related to, well, how fucking awful fracking is. Moran was all, here are tickets to the Philadelphia Orchestra lemme frack, here is money for a yachting vacation, lemme frack, here's a bunch more money, lemme frack.

At least Jan Brewer has alcoholism as an excuse for her bad behavior.

Angrycat sez: Yo, dude, YOU MAD? No, no, I'm not mocking. I swear. I mean, purr, purr, purr, I love you. Just -- you know, your Manson eyes of hate? Really freaking me out right now.