2 years in - time to say thanks

Here it is, 2 years since I started writing the blog thanks to Lew's kind offer.  Hard to believe there could be so many things wrong with the PLCB that I could write almost 140 posts in that amount of time. I hope I've kept up the standard Lew set when he started this blog.

2 down, less than 1 to go with luck!

I couldn't have done this as well as I hope I'm doing without all the clerks and office workers passing along tips and information; in a number of instances, things I would never have found out about by myself.  I'm sure our local union stalker would love to root out who they are, but I delete their emails and chats so their identities are protected.

There are a number of Legislators that need thanking. They know who they are, and I appreciate them helping to further the cause. And of course, the readers, to whom I hope this has been a source of information and thought. I know we have PLCB employees who read this but never act on what is brought up. They still can't get all the "Jack Daniel's/Jack Daniel/Jack Daniels" entries correct and I've mentioned that three or four times just this year. 82 years isn't long enough, I guess. (Guys, a tip: put a sticky note on the side of your monitor: "It's Jack Daniel's") Of course, thanks to the FBI for proving what we all knew.

I know we have Legislators on both sides who read us too, some of them want to do what their constituents want and some do not, and some do but aren't allowed by their party, and there are some who don't have a clue what this is all about. Horse, water - you know the rest.

My standard has always been to be able to back up and prove all the factual information I post and to accept anything that disproves it. So far I've not had any takers. I intend to continue that policy, because factual information is the basis of any reasonable discussion.

Here's hoping that year number 3 will be the last, because the State Store System will be a relic of the past.



On a side note to another story, it has now been two months and the PLCB still hasn't figured out how to use those computers enough to put out unaudited numbers for the year.

What Rough Beast...

The Second Coming

W.B. Yeats

Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.
Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of Spritus Mundi
Troubles my sight: somewhere in the sands of the desert.

A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.
The darkness drops again; but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Harrisburg to be born?

 

A twisted, disfigured privatization bill is limping toward the finish line in the Senate as I write this, at 1:30 AM on Saturday morning. I'm listening to the Democrats' last-ditch efforts as amendments are offered. Senator Teplitz is admitting that the PLCB is corrupt and stupid, but thinks it should be retained. I believe he undercuts his argument...but it's futile. He's speaking in favor of "The Ferlo Amendment." That's the Democrats' "modernization" scheme, which really stands for more of the same...only now open on Sundays (although Ferlo's amendment DID have better "package reform;" the Republicans have ludicrously made The Case Law even MORE complicated). 

 

This bill is ridiculous in its pointless compromise. If it passes, we will still be a laughingstock among civilized states. Unnecessarily arbitrary compromises stud it like chunks of coal in a pudding. This has become a coddling of Big Beer, and a crusade against Corbett. It will be decided on party lines, for reasons having very little to do with the merits of the bill.

 

And you know what? I'll take this Second Coming of private alcohol sales in the Commonwealth. Because once the wall is broken, it cannot be repaired. It can only be further torn down as people realize how stupid it was to begin with. The predictions of disaster will come to naught.

 

Ferlo's amendment was defeated, narrowly, with one Republican -- Greenleaf, of Montgomery County -- voting for it. The bill has been amended, with a vote of 27 Republicans in favor of the Pileggi amendment, an augury of success in the Appropriations Committee, after which it will return to the Senate for final passage and reconciliation with the House...which could be tricky. But another step goes forward; the slouching continues. The senators are calling it a night, and so am I.