The Calvert Street Communist Party Newsletter reports today that Charter school ruling could cost city millions.  Basically, the Maryland Court of Appeals, in a 7-2 ruling, held that "the money follows the child" in school funding case.  While this may hurt the school system budget in the short run, it may ultimately help the school system in the long run.

Runaround Sue often claims that sbynews.com is a "news" site, claiming that he is Salisbury's most unbiased and reliable news source.  But he is far from "unbiased" and "reliable".  News sites don't publish pure rumor and speculation.  News sites tend to confirm their sources.  News sites tend to at least check out both sides of a story-- even if they only publish one side of it.

Runaround Sue does none of these things.

Do You Come From the Land Down Under?

If so, do you eat meat?

Well, after much deliberation, I've chosen my lawyer.

I would go with Denny Crane, but he has the MadCow.  And that means Alan Shore would probably second chair.

I would go with Perry Mason, but two would be one too many drama queens in the court room.

I would go with Victor Sifuentes, but the last time I checked, he had become President on the West Wing.

There there are the three babe-o-licious lawyers.

Alexandra Cabot -- she's in witness protection.

Joyce Davenport-- who could ever steal her away from her "pizza man" Frank Furillo?

Lt Col Sarah Mackenzie -- that would be too much temptation.

So, I've had to go a different route...

Dear John Pick,

Why do you volunteer to fall on swords?  The next time you decide to block a website, just do it.  Don't announce it.

What's up With Pat van den Beemt?  In my previous post, I detailed how Pat van den Beemt failed to ask some crucial questions and challenge some statements by the Hereford Volunteer Ambulance Association.

Going back through the archive, I notice she bought the story from Maryland Line VFD hook, line and sinker, too.

There's something fishy in Hereford these days, and I have to wonder if the North County News is really interested in all the facts. It doesn't seem so from this story.

Runaround Sue has decided not to stop at announcing a lawsuit against me.  Now he has threatened the blogger over at Salisbury Soapbox.

Showing his angry side, Runaround Sue was inflamed when Soapbox criticized him for not providing the whole story about the recent Doug Brown funeral.

Based on some of the feedback I am getting on the site here, and in email, I will now be changing the official nickname/moniker of Delaware Blogger Joe Albero.

I officially dub thee "Runaround Sue", as he is constantly running around threatening to sue anyone that crosses his path (myself included!).

Idiot! over at Joey Albero Is An American Idol highlights yet another battle Runaround Sue has engaged himself in.

A fabulous lunch yesterday at the Mason-Dixon Restaurant in Shrewsbury, PA, that is.

I had the meatloaf with mash potatoes and applesauce.  My sister had the Greek Salad (ginormous, it is) and her kids had a hot dog w/fries and grilled cheese with fries.

Portions were generous, the meal was hot, the price was right ($30 for four people) and most importantly, my glass of iced tea was never empty.

Outstanding food, great service, and a good time. 

Again, that is the Maxon-Dixon Restaurant, right by the Rutters at the Corner of Susquehanna Trail and 851.

Niall Ferguson, a noted British author, spreads Fear, Uncertainity and Doubt over at The Telegraph  while worshiping at the alter of the oft-discredited Malthus.  Ferguson, in traditional modern British style, forgets the influence of markets (good and bad) and the results of well-intentioned but stupid policies on the part of government in claiming that our bigger worry should be about grain, not oil.

This site runs on servers at WebHost4Life. I use a shared hosting plan, which means my site can be on a server shared by up to 250 other sites.  For my site, this is a perfect solution, as I don't get enough traffic to really justify a higher-quality plan.

At the company I work for, due to client budgeting restrictions, we often put our clients on similar hosting plans.  Clients will readily pay $15-$20k for a site, but then go all wobbly-kneed at the idea of paying more than $20/month for hosting.  Not sure why that is-- especially when the site is such a core part of their business -- but it happens.

Recently, though, we've been pushing clients to use another host.  It's still a shared-hosting plan, but they limit both the number and type of sites they host per server, and they monitor things in ways that I find astounding.  Their support is OUTSTANDING-- it's not just quick, thorough, and responsive, it's actually informative.

The host I am talking about is PowerDNN.  If you are looking for a top-quality web host that still has competitive prices, give Tony Valenti a call over at PowerDNN. I can't say enough about them.  Once I get rid of some other bills, I might even move this site over there.  I am absolutely happy with the service they provide.  They are really pleasant to deal with.

Check them out:  www.powerdnn.com.

Dear Mr. State Attorney General:

You are allegedly investigating a number of blogs according to a blogger who lives in Southern Delaware.

I would encourage you to tread lightly.  State Attorneys General have a spotty record at best in this vein, and given the questionable record of your predecessor before both Federal Courts and the Maryland Court of Special Appeals on cases involving Constitutional Rights, I would hate to see your first term become mired in a messy set of investigations that may tend to impugn the First Amendment rights of citizens in this state.

While you are perfectly within your rights powers to investigate threats, I would encourage you to do so in the light of public scrutiny to ensure that you are not accused of trying to chill the free speech of citizens.

If there is anything on this blog that you feel is of a nature that may concern your office, I encourage you to contact me directly.  You can write to me at blog@gunpowderchronicle.com.  Or, comment right here.

I look forward to hearing from you.

Regards,

The Gunpowder Chroncile

Before any farmers -- and I know a lot, and I even live on a farm -- think this an attack on them, get your britches out of twist and read the whole post.

Big Agriculture has indeed won another big fight on capital hill, and for the rest of us -- including family farms-- the result is not good.  The agriculture bill recently passed by Congress is another in a long history of payoffs to big agriculture that go back to the founding of the Republic.

Maryland State Government is an abject failure.  Why?  Because no one in leadership wants to own up to the simple fact about our structural deficit:  raising revenue will not fix it. And when I say "no one in leadership", I include everyone on the political spectrum, not just the lefty Dems that hold court right now.

The city of Salisbury has allegedly decided to ban a certain website from their computers, and that website has responded by a) providing a proxy site as a way around the restrictions, and b) questioning the legality of such a move.  I thought I would share my insight as a member of the information technology community for nearly 15 years now.  I should say, that as the Solution Architect for my employer, I am part of the process of establishing such policies and advising the company leadership on what they can, and cannot do.  I am not a lawyer, and I do not play one on TV.  So if you are an employer confronting such issues, I suggest that you contact your counsel for a definitive list of what you can and cannot do.

You no longer need to log in to post comments.

Note that unlike some other blogs, I don't moderate comments except at the request of the commenter.

Let the free-fire zone begin.

Help me pick a lawyer for Jihad Joe's big lawsuit against me.  He informs me that "I'm going to need one".

According to Jihad Joe, "a local attorney" in Salisbury is planning to sue me, and has invited Jihad Joe to join the case.  Jihad Joe claims I called him a terrorist and defamed his character.

Of course, one must possess character in order to defame it.

One also must be careful in what one chooses to believe.  Since Jihad Joe did not identify said attorney, this could be made up news -- just like most of Jihad Joe's made up assertions, accusations, insinuations, and suppositions based on nothing but stale air.  Until I am served, there is no case, as Jihad Joe has pointed out in other forums.  So I await the Baltimore County Deputy Sheriff with open arms.  Make sure on the service papers you say "go to front door".  I can't always hear someone knocking on the back door, and the doorbell button back there isn't working.

I am fairly confident that I would prevail, given a fair opportunity to present my case.

Just one important thing:  you shouldn't file in Wicomico County.  Most of the judges in Wicomico County know my father, and they would probably have to recuse themselves.  A lot of people in the potential jury pool know either me, my dad, or my late stepmother.  And since my blog is written in Baltimore County-- and hosted on servers in Los Angeles County -- I will intend to argue over jurisdiction.  Just where did the alleged offenses occur? 

I will be needing counsel, so if anyone is interested, please contact me at blog@gunpowderchronicle.com.  I figure Charlie Jannace can't, because he previously represented Jihad Joe. But, there are still a lot of good attorneys out there.  I definitely won't be representing myself, as only a fool has himself for a client.

The Delmar Dego, The Wicomico Wop, Jihad Joe Albero slings insults and lies like a Taco Bell customer breaking wind.  But I think now he has gone overboard.  In the words of Howard Beale, "I'M MAD AS HELL AND I'M NOT GOING TO TAKE IT ANYMORE."

The Transportation Security Administration has released an unclassified warning to all airport officials (and presumably to the flying public) about a new round of incidents that lead to a belief that terrorist are once again probing planes and airports for security weaknesses using common items.

This warning comes at critical time, as the Lefty grab asses in the Democrat party recently defeated the King amendment, which would have given protection to citizens who reported suspicious behavior to authorities.  Named the John Doe amendment after the lawsuit filed by Muslim "clerics" who were removed from a USAirways flight last year, the goal was to give a sort of "Good Samaritan" status protection so that citizens could not be sued for doing their duty.

This warning is a reminder that everyone of us must remain ever viligant.  Under the Militia Act of 1903, all adult males are legally members of the unorganized militia, and each of us should take that responsibility seriously and soberly.  As the passengers on Flight 93 showed us six years ago, we are sometimes the FIRST, LAST, and BEST line of defenseagainst attacks on us, our families, and our nation.

Just because the Lefty grab asses in the Democrat party lack the testicular fortitude to do the right thing does not mean we citizens are excused from doing the same.

The Islamofacists and their fellow travelers want to kill us.  They don't want to have us leave the Middle East.  They want to kill you, me, our children, and our families.  And they don't care how they do it.

Keep your head up, your eyes open, and courage ready.

Our lefty presidential candidates have all but endorsed the idea of women in combat.  They don't want to reinstitute the draft, but, they say if one is reinstituted, 18 year old girls should be required to register with Selective Service.

Brilliant idea.

Elaine Donnelly, long a crusader against the stupid idea of putting women into direct combat, has a great response over at The Tank on National Review Online.

Someone please lock these lefties up in a cage.  The uniformed services are not a social experiment.

From the Oregonian:

The two boys tore down the hall of Patton Middle School after lunch, swatting the bottoms of girls as they ran--what some kids later said was a common form of greeting.

But bottom-slapping is against policy in McMinnville Public Schools. So a teacher's aide sent the gawky seventh-graders to the office, where the vice principal and a police officer stationed at the school soon interrogated them.

After hours of interviews with students the day of the February incident, the officer read the boys their Miranda rights and hauled them off in handcuffs to juvenile jail, where they spent the next five days.

Now, Cory Mashburn and Ryan Cornelison, both 13, face the prospect of 10 years in juvenile detention and a lifetime on the sex offender registry.

During the vaunted CNN/YouTube debate, Senator Barak Obama was asked if he would "meet separately, without precondition, during the first year of your administration . . . with the leaders of Iran, Syria, Venezuela, Cuba, and North Korea, in order to bridge the gap that divides our countries."

Without hesitation, he said "You betcha".  Actually, he said "I would".  Which of course, set off a firestorm.

But, proving that the spin is worse than the b.s., his staffer proved once of Barak Obama's worse tendencies: poor hiring decisions.

Where is the town of Bivale?

Anyone?

Buehler?  Buehler?  Anyone?

Oh, there isn't a town of Bivale?

Imagine my shocking surprise when I logged on to The Daily Slime in Salisbury to find the following headline under "Breaking News":

Patient Jumps from Window at PRMC

Jihad Joe is announcing that he is apparently now being sued by Mayor Barrie "Headlights" Tilghman.

I want to offer a service to the ENTIRE blogosphere.  If there are any lawyers out there reading this (Bill?  Hadley?  Don?  George?) who can slip by the courthouse and pick up a copy of the papers, let me know at blog@gunpowderchronicle.com. I'll send you my fax number, and you can fax them over to me.  I'll scan and post the entire text of the lawsuits here, and provide comments where I can.

Let me again restate that although I think Jihad Joe is a repugnant little troll, I think using the courts to silence bloggers is bad fom, and shamelessly stupid.

Andy Harris now posting a weekly update over at Jihad Joe's site, AQD.

What is he thinking?  If Andy thinks this will gain him credibility, I'd have to question his wisdom.

The house cleaning at the Baltimore City Police Department continues.  The Daily Slime in Salisbury is reporting that Police Department spokesman Matt Jablow has been fired and replaced by an aide to Mayor Sheila Pratt Dixon.

The Calvert Street Communist Party Newsletter's Commissar-in-Chief, not usually prone to common sense columns, has a particularly clear and well-thought-out one on why the zero tolerance policies of Ed Norris and Kevin Clark worked-- and why abandoning that policy got Leonard Hamm shown the door.

Club for Growth highlights a CBS News/New York Times poll question.  The results are interesting, but the bigger issue is how poorly worded the question is.

Sunday's Daily Slime featured an article claiming that 60% of Wicomico County's Residents don't have access to a fire hydrant and therefore, there homes may be in imminent danger of destruction by fire.

I say, "So, there are other options."

The Great Curmudgeon, over at Duvafiles, informs the blogging community that the Bloods have officially taken over Pemberton Manor.

Tell me, was that takeover made easier by the fact that Pemberton Manor -- a haven of Section 8 housing subsidies -- is Salisbury's only gated community?

Let's face it, if you can't keep a bunch of gangstas and their tramps out of a gated community, what can you do?

According to the Calvert Street Communist Party Newsletter:

A 28-year-old Baltimore man who appeared in the infamous Stop Snitching witness-intimidation video has been charged with drug conspiracy by a federal grand jury, prosecutors announced Friday.

Sherman Kemp and his co-defendant, Isaac Gomez, 25, of Fairview, N.J., were charged with conspiracy to distribute cocaine. Kemp, who appears in the video, is also charged with possession with intent to distribute cocaine, possession of a firearm while committing a drug trafficking crime and illegal possession of a firearm while a convicted felon.

Geraldo Rivera.  Enough said.