Fumo Bravely Stands Up For Closed Records

Monday night, the State Senate Rules Committee approved a bill that would presume government records are open, forcing government officials to prove records aren’t public when denying records request. Currently, the state only releases white sheets of paper with “Pennsylvania is Awesome!” written on it.

But guess who voted against it?

The rules committee voted 14-1 to approve this version overhauling the records bill. Sen. Vincent Fumo, a Philadelphia Democrat, was the lone dissenting vote.

It’s okay, Vince. You could simply keep everything private by saying it’s all trade secrets related to alpaca farming or maybe the Seaport Museum, the city’s most important cultural landmark. You may remember a similar lone dissenting vote was cast by everyone’s favorite state rep last year.

Proposal would presume most records open [BCCT]

What An Alleged Pa. Murderer Looks Like

Do you think the lion slippers roar when you walk?

Meanwhile, in Pittsburgh, a woman put her son in a dog crate after she said he laced her drink with lamp oil and household cleaner. She also threatened to bury him alive!

Allentown man charged in two homicides [Morning Call via Brad and Wonkette]

Ed Rendell: Cheat On Your Taxes

Ed Rendell was on a radio show out in Pittsburgh when the matter of Allegheny County’s new liquor by the drink tax came up. Apparently, we have this in Philadelphia, too, but Rendell told everyone not to worry because it just won’t be collected anyway.

(Rendell): “We don’t quite enforce in the neighborhood taverns as well as we do in the big hotels and restaurants.”

(Host): “You look the other way, sir?”
(Rendell): “Umm, you can say that.”

Everyone had a good laugh about the governor’s plan to let people cheat on their taxes out in Pittsburgh, except for the Nutter administration, which had to remind people not to cheat. The governor apparently meant that they just go after the delinquent hotels and restaurants first, because they have larger tax bills.

In other news, people didn’t know how to cheat on their taxes until the governor told them to, so Pennsylvania is full of morons. Maybe if we all cheat on our state taxes enough they’ll reduce the size of the legislature!

Rendell Tweaks Remarks About City’s Drink Tax [KYW 1060]

Slow News Day In York Much Slower Than Here

Be glad you at least have golf course strippers and cheesesteak joint controversies to keep you cool until things pick up in the fall. Here’s the lead story in the York Daily Record, notable for being the York paper that didn’t reject me for a job.

I can’t wait ’til to see what they do for the 20th anniversary of The Silence of the Lambs in 2011. “Can you eat a census taker? You could win a free DVD!”

York Daily Record

Pennsylvania To Finally Notify Us Of Legislators’ Names

It’s not just emergency weather week in Pennsylvania. It’s also apparently Sunshine Week and it surely will have us all saying, “Saber. ¡Es su derecho!” (Yes, the week to study emergency weather conditions and “Sunshine Week” take place at the same time. Nobody ever said this state didn’t have a sense of humor.)

Sunshine Week is the one time of the year when politicians tell us we have a right to know what they’re spending our money on. (The other 51 weeks, they go all Mark B. Cohen on us.) In Pennsylvania, which has the worst open-records laws in the country, politicians are slowly attempting to make the state more, ah, sunshine-y.

One of those is new Democratic State Rep. Tim Mahoney of Fayette County, who campaigned on improving right-to-know laws. And actually won! (Wow. The rest of the state has some amusing ideas on why you should vote for someone, instead of just how much one sees the candidate on television.)

As part of a toast to Sunshine Week, I’d like to propose this toast: “Saber. ¡Es su derecho!”

Pa. leaders begin efforts to expand open-records laws [Inquirer]
March 5: Mark B. Cohen Doesn’t Want You To Know He’s Secretly Funding Phillyblog’s Server Bills

Weather Emergency Preparedness Week Just In Time For The End Of Weather Emergencies

Now that it’s almost spring (!) and the chances for any more significant snowfall continue to dwindle, the state of Pennsylvania is apparently ready to finally correct the problems of the snafu on Interstate 78 last month.

Now, nobody at PennDOT is going to purgatory, at least not yet. No, in Pennsylvania it’s Weather Emergency Preparedness Week, where the state agencies will practice what to do in the case of inclement weather.

One might think that it’d be a better idea to have Weather Emergency Preparedness Week before winter, the weather that causes the state the most problems, but then you obviously haven’t seen the upcoming Sunstroke Prevention Week, October 14-20, 2007.

It’s Weather Emergency Preparedness Week in Pa. [KYW 1060]
Feb. 12: PennDOT To Be Darned To Heck

Pa. Laws Prevent Pac-Tragedy

Video game maker Namco recently opened up an online store, Club Namco, that attempts to cater to irony-obsessed youths who wish to purchase t-shirts with Pac-Man and Pole Position on them, despite probably never having played the games. (I was awesome at Pole Position, for the record.)

Anyway, despite the fact the store offers shirts and plush toys, you can only buy the former, since the shirts are made in Japan and were only tested to meet federal guidelines. Pennsylvania is one of several states that has more restrictive stuffed-toy regulations than the government.

I, for one, would like to thank our state legislators for stopping these evil Pac-Man plush toys from making it into our fair state. I haven’t quite been able to figure out what state regulations are stricter than the governments, but according to the official regulations of Pennsylvania, stuffed toys can contain no more than 1.0% urea. How else do you think Pac-Man gets his color?

Frankly, they could be dangerous otherwise — I mean, do you really want a stuffed Pac-Toy gobbling up dots and chasing ghosts after chomping on an even bigger dot? I think not. It’s good to know our we have laws.

Pac-Man Plush Cushion [Club Namco]
Club Namco open for business [Gamespot via Joystiq]
Stuffed Toy Licensing and Labeling Laws [Toy Industry Association]