It turns out that the National Endowment for the Arts can actually be useful.  They are sponsoring the Blue Star Museum Initiatives, partnership among Blue Star Families, the National Endowment for the Arts, and more than 700 museums in all 50 states to offer free admission to active duty military personnel and their families from Memorial Day, May 31, 2010, through Labor Day, September 6, 2010.

Of course, as a member of the B&O Railroad Museum in Baltimore, I was a little upset that they were not on the list.  So I contacted Dana Kirn at the Museum, who has informed me that they were not aware of the initiative, but are working diligently to get on the list.

So, good job to the NEA, who until now, didn’t seem like  it did much except sponsor art offensive to Christians and patriotic Americans.  And good job to the B & O Railroad Museum, who responded quickly to my inquiry.

The Park Inn’s John Thompson is opening a new package goods store at the old Parkton Exxon.  You’ll remember that John spent a fair deal of money and time trying to build a new Park Inn up on Happy Lane – on land his family has owned for over fifty years – only to get to stonewalled and blocked by a local church who threw up ridiculous protests about having a restaurant with an alcohol license too close to a day care center.  Oh, and let’s not forget the straw man argument about how much traffic it might generate.

Well, the old Parkton Exxon handled the traffic just fine.  So hopefully John will be able to move forward with this.  Otherwise, the church might see some unwanted opposition the next time they want to do some renovations themselves.

O’Guvnah has really blown an appointment.  With the long-awaited departure of William Hackerman (CEO of Whiting Turner) from the Maryland Health and Higher Education Facilities authority, O’Malley had an opportunity to make a real difference.  But as he has done for the past four years, he shied away from being courageous and opted for stupid.

First, it was never a good idea to have Whiting Turner on the authority.  Why?  Just look at the number of dollars in state contracts that Whiting Turner has.  They essentially own the construction contracts for the University of Maryland Medical System.  There have been swirling rumors around that relationship for years, to the point where there are certain construction services firms and architecture firms that just don’t even bid on those projects anymore.

So O’Malley had a great opportunity here to really clear the deck and begin to put in some fresh faces and competent folks whose interest would have been serving the taxpayers of Maryland, and not a major campaign contributor.

In fact, when you look at the authority, even with the appointment of Toby Bozzuto, there is not one member of the American Society of Hospital Engineers.  NOT ONE. There is no one on the authority with substantial experience in the design, development, construction, deployment, or operation of health care facilities. NOT ONE. 

Instead, O’Malley appointed Toby Bozzuto, the son of Bozzuto Group CEO Thomas Bozzuto.  What does Bozzuto Development specialize in?  According to their website, “Bozzuto Development Company specializes in the development of high-end multifamily rental communities in both urban and suburban settings.”  Further examination of their portfolio on their website reveals that the company has zero experience and zero upcoming projects in the Health Care field. 

But what O’Malley DID do was to reward a family and a group of companies with a long history of political contributions to Democrat candidates in this state, proving once again that money does buy access.

Health care facility construction is expensive, and the risks are high.  One would think, with the current concerns over construction of new facilities by Adventist Health Care and Holy Cross in Montgomery County, the impending collapse of Dimensions Health Care in Prince George’s County, and UMMS’ failure to get a new hospital off the ground to replace the dinosaur known as Easton Memorial, that this would be a serious issues that a self-proclaimed serious leader would tackle head-on.

But no, our Governor, who lies in office continue to mount, used this opportunity to reward contributors and an ally instead of taking a visionary, forward-looking approach to the state’s involvement in hospital construction and finance.

On behalf of the taxpayers of Maryland, I say this:  the sooner you get back to playing Irish Rock music on regular schedule, the sooner you move out of Government House, and the sooner you are looking for work, the better it will be for the entire state.

And in case you are asking the question, “Well, Tim, who would you have appointed?”  Here’s my answer:  my Dad, who knows more about hospital facility operations, construction, planning, design, and construction than just about any other facilities professional in the state of Maryland.  Oh, and by the way, he knows a little about educational facilities planning and construction, too.  If O’Guvnah happens to show up in Salisbury for the opening of the new Bennett High School, or he visits Peninsula Regional Medical Center, he might want to ask about that.

Watching the local Baltimore news, it is evident that there is a rising problem with bullying.  A child attempts to jump out of a window in Baltimore City to avoid bullies.  A girl at Franklin Middle is thrown down a set of stairs.  And the professional “educators” say that they can’t do much.  Andres Alonso, CEO of the Baltimore City school system, refuses to suspend or expel bullies.

What in God’s name is going on?  I’ll tell you.  The reaction of the so-called professional educational class in this country is proving the old adage that those who can do, and those can’t teach. 

You know what you can do?

1.  Bullying with a physical threat is an assault.  Bullying with a physical act is assault and battery.  What the educators should do is simple:  call the police and file charges.  Perp-walk these little bastards right out of the school, in full view of EVERYONE. In handcuffs.  They committed a crime, let those little shitbirds do the time.

2.  Bullying without the physical threat is still harassment.  It would not be tolerated for five seconds in a workplace.  Why should our children not have the same protection.  Against, arrest these little shits.

3.  Let’s sue the crap out of the parents.  The University of Maryland Law School clinics love to go after farmers.  Let’s make them provide low-cost (or even free) legal services to any parent whose child has been bullied.  Let the parents of the shitbirds suffer interminably in a court of law.

4.  Finally, to the educators and administrators out there… GROW A PAIR. When that child is in your facility, you are charged to act in loco parentis.  Whether you like it or not, whether you feel like you are paid enough to do it or not, YOU are responsible for the safety and security of these children when they are in your facility.  SO STOP YOUR FRAKKING WHINING AND DO SOMETHING.  Or quit.  Wal-Mart is hiring. You can go there and sit on your fat asses and great people and not have to get involved at all.

The excuses from the professional educator class are just that:  excuses.

And I can tell you this: if my niece or nephew ever get bullied at school, any professional educator that sits on their hands will be hoping they still have the muscle mass and coordination to be a greeter at Wal-Mart when I am done.

Well, the CVS is finally open in Shrewsbury.  This town is like a great poker hand, because everything comes in pairs (or three of a kind).  The new CVS is right at the corner of 851 and Main Street – across from the Rite Aid. 

The Domino’s is right next door to the Pizza Hut.  The Saubel’s is 900 feet from the Giant, which is just down the hill from the WalMart Supercenter.

The McDonalds, Chick-Fil-A, Wendy’s, KFC/TacoBell, Arby’s, Quiznos, and Subway are all with a quarter-mile radius.

The Home Depot is right across the street from the Central Tractor Supply AND the Tru-Value.

The only things really spread out are the beer stores.

Nina Easton has a fantastic article in Fortune about a mob that descended on the house of Greg Baer, former Clinton Treasury Department official, lifelong Democrat, and deputy general counsel at Bank of America.  Who was this mob?  Tea Partiers angry at bailouts and cushy deals for Senators like Chis “Corruption” Dodd?  Nope.  This angry mob was our liberal fascist friends at that behemoth union SEIU.

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FoxNews is running an article that notorious US-born Yemeni Cleric and verified camel-frakker has called for the killing of US civilians in his latest video from the Yemen offshoot of Al-Qaeda.  Acting as proof that Muhammed had sex with camels, Anwar Al-Awlaki (the spiritual inspiration for the Fort Hood Shooter) used a 45-minute video to justify the targeting of US civilians and other crimes against humanity.

Here’s my question: what dingleberry in the National Command Authority has stopped watching the Military Channel (channel 287 on DirecTV) and no longer realizes that both the US Marines, the US Navy, and the US Army all have highly-skilled, highly-qualified scout-sniper teams?

Why aren’t we putting assassination teams into the field to mangle this guy’s brains with a Lapua .308 round?

Oh, Obama has no problem using Hellfire missiles fired from a Predator drone when he gets the chance.  The Predator drone is his favorite toy. 

But sometimes, you need to let our highly-skilled and highly-motivated operators put their boots on the ground in their ghillie suits and let the rounds fly.

Obama needs to step up and scrape the yellow paint off his back and clean it off the White House furniture. Al-Awlaki is a traitor who is actively engaging in acts of war against the United States of America and crimes against humanity.

One shot, one kill.  That’s all the American people want, Mr. President.

Robert Little of the Baltimore Sun does a fairly good job of covering the whole stent mess at St. Joseph Hospital, detailing how attorneys (many of whom stand to make a fortune) feel that the lawsuits could grow.  Keep in mind that this whole mess grew out of the scuttled merger between MidAtlantic Cardiovascular Associates and MedStar Health’s Union Memorial (a competitor).  The physician in question, Dr. Midei, had been a co-founder of MidAtlantic who was working in a dual role as head of St. Joe’s cardiac cath lab.  (Talk about your conflicts of interest!)

The big unanswered question that no one has gone into yet is simple:  MidAtlantic Cardiovascular Associates is the cardiovascular practice for almost all the major Baltimore hospitals.  How is it not a conflict-of-interest, or at least a little hinky, to have a single practice with so much power and working for so many different health care organizations?

In her latest feminazi screed featured in the Baltimore Sun, Jean Marbella fully endorses the full-blown European Socialist Nanny State bullshit  that Baltimore Sun columnists are known far and wide for.  The same European Socialist Nanny State bullshit that makes the Baltimore Sun a complete laughing stock in journalism circles.

This time she takes on the Baltimore City Council for deciding to back off on the proposed beverage tax.

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