Leftovers: Please Speak Section 8 When Renting

• A landlord in Abington is renting a house with one caveat: “Section 8 & Meagan’s [sic] Law Welcome.” He’s also looking for convicted arsonists, professional heroin users and Terrell Owens. [CBS 3]

• Dear gods of the blogoverse, please please please make the liberal bloggers come to Philadelphia. (And, for that matter, any conservative bloggers, too.) Then we can get bowling balls and make the greatest game in the history of the world. [Attytood]

• A trucker in East Whiteland Township got a ticket for $17,000. “But once you get in the there with a 53-footer, its impossible to get out,” he said. Tell me about it. [NBC 10]

• In response to his uncle’s arrest, Bam Margera is going to move to Kazakhstan. With Borat! [Inquirer]

Boxing Out Terrorists At Independence Hall

As you may have heard by now, the geniuses at the National Park Service are planning on putting a seven-foot wrought iron fence around Independence Hall. This idea has been condemned by everyone from Arlen Specter to John Street to the editorial boards of both the Inky and Daily News to neighbors in Society Hill. Charlie Manuel probably hates it, too.

But, in case you haven’t gotten the idea as to what a giant, seven-foot fence surrounding Independence Hall would look like, Philly Skyline’s Brad Maule has given us a nice visual aid with the help of a certain overpaid 6-foot-11 center:

And, really, would that ever work? Samuel Dalembert couldn’t even guard Manute Bol. What’s he gonna do to a terrorist?

Hometown Improvement [PW]
The Independence Experience [phillyskyline]

Allen Iverson Shouldn’t Have Hired The Hells Angels To Do Security At His Party

Here’s the dilemma for Allen Iverson. When you’re having your big bash at, uh, Crabbers Restaurant in Hampton, Va., you probably want to hire security. I mean, Crabbers gets pretty rough at times! But if you hire security, there’s a chance your security team will allegedly go apeshit on four people and you’ll get sued for $2.4 mil.

Each of the four men is looking for 600k from AI and his manager Gary Moore, stemming from what they say was a wild night:

According to Stephen Bricker, attorney to the four plaintiffs, Priest Brown and Robin Isman say they were attacked by security team members as they left the club, and Arthur Simmons and Daryl Cooper say they were assaulted while dancing.

Simmons was punched and Cooper was punched and hit with a chair, Bricker said. Brown was repeatedly kicked and punched and Isman was punched in the face as they were walking outside the club, Bricker said.

“They were looking to get the buzz that they were big, bad dudes,” Bricker said of the security team.

Hit with a chair, eh? Should be pretty simple — the culprit is obviously a former ECW wrestler.

Four men sue Iverson, claim star’s security attacked them [AP/Daily News]

Street Sticking To His, Uh, Libertarianism

Way back in June, City Council finally passed a smoking ban. The bill had exemptions, of course, but the city’s anti-smoking lobby was excited, City Council was excited, even some bar owners were down with it. It wasn’t so hot for Joe Camel, but, c’mon.

Mayor Street had until early September to sign the bill, City Council went on vacation and the whole thing was promptly forgotten, except for conversations with smokers in bars. (”Oh, you know we won’t be able to do that in a few months!” “Wow.” “Hey, want to come home with me?” “No.”) Everyone figured it’d be signed in a few months, would go into effect in January and we’d all come home smelling a lot less shitty.

Except, uh, right. In a clever and oh-so-predictable display of John Streetedness, John Street is probably not going to sign the bill.

It’s fairly simple, of course: Michael Nutter spearheaded the bill, and Street doesn’t like Nutter and doesn’t want him to be the next mayor. Street could probably come up with a good fake reason to oppose the bill, but he’s come up with, by far, the stupidest reason in the history of Philadelphia politics (And, remember, this is a city that bombed a block of rowhomes and let it burn.)

Street’s reasoning is, of course, that the smoking ban is “defective” because… it allows patrons to smoke outdoors. That’s right! Ol’ Johnny boy says he’s not going to sign the bill because you can smoke at sidewalk cafes. “A smoking ban that doesn’t include sidewalk cafes isn’t much of a ban.” Now, Street coulda said something about the exemptions for taverns — especially the clash between state and local laws, which force bars to choose between going smoke-free or closing on Sundays — or private clubs. Or he could have put on a chicken suit and clucked at cars for four hours yesterday in opposition to the bill because it uses the letter “e” too much.

Either of those would have been better, more reasonable reasons to dislike the smoking ban. But instead Street goes with the most random fake reason to dislike the bill he can come up with. In the smoking bans across this great nation of ours, where is the one place where you’re usually allowed to smoke? That’s right: Sidewalk cafes.

Oh, Street has another good money quote, too: “We are all for a ban, but the way it happened isn’t a model of the legislative process.” Okay, I’ll give you a minute to stop laughing before moving on.

Done? Good. So what’s going to happen now? As usual, who knows. All we know is: Smoke ‘em if you got ‘em, and even if you don’t, well, somebody next to you might.

Street balking on smoke-ban bill [Daily News]
June 16: Q&A On The Smoking Bill

‘Philly EDGE’ Continues The Awesome

Let’s bowl it out, bitches.

Philly EDGE

Sleep In Heavenly Peace

All is not calm, all is not bright.

Violent Night, Deadly Night In Philadelphia

‘Good Day’ Drops Ball, ‘10!’ Show Picks It Up

Now that Mascot Monday appears to just be an inexplicable part of our past, the other local morning shows are picking up the slack with mascots. Good show, 10! Good show.

To His Koy Quarterback

Yesterday, the Eagles cut Koy Detmer and Todd Pinkston, two longtime Eagles. And, although they both (to put it lightly) sucked, we’re certainly going to miss them.

We’re especially going to miss Koy Detmer, basically for one reason:

The whip celebration. We haven’t seen it in, uh, forever, but every game he was out there, we sorta hoped we’d see it. Godspeed, Koy.

Abridged ‘Daily News’ Columnists

Stu Bykofsky: Byko’s back in Philly, bitches!

Ronnie Polaneczky: Move the Liberty Bell to Billy Penn’s hat! Whooooooo, get it?

Shitty Philly Cabs Cause Extra Buck Surcharge

Parking tickets went up five bucks this week, a hike done because people were just getting parking tickets instead of parking in, uh, garages. (Kinda.)

But, although City Council approved a $5 surcharge, there’s also an extra buck surcharge from the state legislature:

Corinne O’Connor, head of on-street parking, says the extra buck is needed because the Parking Authority now oversees taxis and limos in the city:

“We did not receive any kind of funding for staffing and the cost it takes to run that department, so the dollar surcharge has helped with that.”

O’Connor says beyond the goal of the original increase is not to raise cash, but to spur turnaround at the meters.

So, right: Taxis are pretty shitty, and so the state needs to charge extra to make sure they stay that way. Thanks, Pennsylvania.

Most City Parking Fines Up by $5 — Actually, $6 [KYW 1060]