In Pittsburgh, idiot protestors are falsely claiming that it’s too hard for poor people to buy a ConnectCard that costs one dollar, and is sold at more than 100 locations
I live in Pittsburgh, PA.
I’m a regular rider of our mass transit system, which is called Port Authority Transit (PAT).
A few years ago, PAT adopted a new program where riders could pay their fare by swiping a card which is called the ConnectCard. The card is available at more than 100 locations, including every Giant Eagle (our city’s biggest supermarket chain), every Goodwill store, the downtown PAT office, and many other areas all over the city. Pretty much every bus route goes by a place that sells the ConnectCard.
The card costs one dollar. Riders can electronically put as much of their own funds as they want on the card. Then when they ride the bus, they pay the fare by swiping their card, instead of paying cash.
In order to encourage riders to use the ConnectCard, PAT offers a discount on fares. A cash fare costs $2.75. People who pay with their ConnectCard get a 25 cent discount.
A transfer (a person’s second ride within a three hour period) costs $2.75 if they pay in cash, but only $1.00 if they use their ConnectCard.
Thus, a round trip within three hours costs $5.50 for someone who pays in cash, vs only $3.50 for someone who uses their ConnectCard. That’s a discount of two dollars for using the ConnectCard. And the card only costs a dollar.
Thus, the very first time that a person uses their ConnectCard to make a round trip in under three hours, the card has more than paid for itself.
Even if someone has eight hours between trips, that’s still a savings of 25 cents per trip, meaning that the card will pay for itself after only two such round trips.
Despite this, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette recently published this article, which says that there are protestors who are complaining that it’s “unfair” to poor people that PAT gives these discounts to people who use the ConnectCard.
Now please keep in mind, as I already said, the card only costs a dollar, and it more than pays for itself the very first time you use it for a round trip that’s under three hours.
And as I said, the card is available at a huge number of places along bus routes.
Despite this, the protestors whined that it was “unfair” to poor people that people who paid in cash had to pay higher fares.
The article said the protestors were worried about the “upfront costs” of buying the card.
And the protestors said it was too hard to get to locations that sell the card.
What a bunch of idiots.
The only thing that’s preventing these protestors from getting a ConnectCard is their irrational insistence on viewing themselves as victims of a problem that does not exist.
If the protesters had spent their time buying a ConnectCard instead of protesting, their “problem” would be solved.
Anyone who rides the bus has access to more than 100 locations where they can purchase a ConnectCard.
Every Giant Eagle and every Goodwill sells them.
Since the protest took place downtown, the protestors could have gone a very short distance (by walking or riding the bus) to Port Authority’s Downtown Service Center to buy one.
Protestors’ concerns about “upfront costs” are unfounded, as the card only costs a dollar, and it pays for itself almost immediately.
The article also said that this issue was especially hard on “single mothers.” Well, whose fault is it that they are “single mothers” in the first place? Just like with people who refuse to get a ConnectCard, “single motherhood” is a case of victimhood taking the place of personal responsibility.
Let’s consider two groups of people in the U.S. The first group has a poverty rate of 2%. The second group has a poverty rate of 76%.
The first group consists of people who followed all three of these steps:
1) Finish high school.
2) Get a full-time job.
3) Wait until age 21 and get married before having children.
The second group consists of people who followed zero of those three steps.
Among people who follow all three of these steps, the poverty rate is 2%.
Among people who follow zero of these steps, the poverty rate is 76%.
(My source for that information is this article, which refers to this PDF, and the relevant data is on page 15 of the PDF. The study uses data from the U.S. Census Bureau.)
Despite this, social justice warriors want us to think that “single mothers” living in poverty are somehow innocent victims, instead of people who have free will.
The solution to almost all poverty is to follow the three rules listed above.
And the solution to not having a ConnectCard is to buy one.
Pittsburgh synagogue shooter tended to by Jewish doctors and nurses, officials say
Pittsburgh synagogue shooter tended to by Jewish doctors and nurses, officials say
October 29, 2018
PITTSBURGH — Jewish doctors and nurses at Allegheny General Hospital in Pittsburgh put their personal feelings aside to help save the life of the man who allegedly claimed he wanted to “kill all the Jews” as he opened fire at a synagogue and murdered 11 worshipers.
Robert Bowers, 46, was shot multiple times himself and taken to AGH. In addition to killing eight men and three women, he wounded six other people, including four police officers, before surrendering Saturday.
“He was taken to my hospital and he’s shouting, ‘I want to kill all the Jews’,” Dr. Jeffrey Cohen, president of Allegheny General Hospital and a member of the Tree of Life Synagogue, told ABC. “The first three people who took care of him were Jewish.”
Another nurse, whose father is a rabbi, “came in from a mass casualty drill and took care of this gentleman.”
Cohen was one of the first people on the scene. He lives in the neighborhood and heard gunfire from his house.
“I was standing there…and you could start hearing very quickly what was going on,” he said.
Just like the first responders who rushed into danger, Cohen credits his doctors, nurses and staff for stepping up.
“We are here to take care of sick people. We’re not here to judge you. We’re not here to ask ‘Do you have insurance or do you not have insurance?’ We’re here to take care of people who need our help,” he said.
Cohen says he and Bowers had a brief conversation at the hospital.
“When I stopped in, I asked him how he was doing. Was he in pain? And he said, ‘No. He was fine,’” Cohen said.
Cohen says Bowers then asked him who he was.
“I said I’m Dr. Cohen, president of the hospital. Then I turned around and left,” he said. “The FBI agent who was guarding him said, ‘I don’t know if I could have done that.’ And I said, ‘If you were in my shoes, I’m sure you could.’”
Bowers was discharged from the hospital Monday morning and arrived at the federal courthouse in downtown Pittsburgh around noon.
He faces 11 counts of criminal homicide, six counts of aggravated assault and 13 counts of ethnic intimidation in addition to federal counts that include weapons offenses and hate crime charges. Federal prosecutors are expected to seek the death penalty against him.
A mass shooting in my own neighborhood
This morning, when I was in my apartment (which does not face the street) and I heard a very long succession of sirens from emergency vehicles going by, I suspected that something really horrible had happened, and the only possibility that entered my mind was either a bombing or a mass shooting at one of the nearby synagogues.
With large crowds of people, including large numbers of women and children, all together in an enclosed space, I’d thought for years that something like this could happen. But I never thought it would happen.
They still haven’t published the victims’ names, pending notification of their families.
I’m 47, and I’ve lived in Squirrel Hill my entire life. I’m hoping for at least another 47 years in this neighborhood. It’s too bad some scumbag deprived at least 11 of my neighbors from living out their lives. I don’t understand why anyone would do this.
The latest updates can be found at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pittsburgh_synagogue_shooting
Pittsburgh police reviewing violent arrest of Ravenna man caught on video
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dY_ed4_xQbg
Pittsburgh police reviewing violent arrest of Ravenna man caught on video
September 21, 2017
PITTSBURGH — Pittsburgh officials are reviewing the violent arrest of a man by five city officers, an encounter recorded by a bystander and posted to Facebook.
The 52-second video shows one officer, in particular, punching the man on the ground while saying, “Stop resisting” Tuesday night near PPG Paints Arena. Officers can be heard cursing, and one calls for a Taser.
Police spokeswoman Sonya Toler says force was used because 47-year-old Daniel Adelman, of Ravenna, Ohio, allegedly interfered with the arrest of another man wanted on a forgery warrant.
The city’s Office of Municipal Investigations and Citizen Police Review Board are reviewing the arrest.
One of the officers has been assigned to desk duty while the others are working their usual assignments. Mayor Bill Peduto says Officer Andrew Jacobs will be on desk duty until the city and the district attorney complete. Jacobs is the officer seen punching Adelman.
Adelman tells KDKA-TV he was drinking at a concert when he stepped outside to smoke and intervened, believing one officer needed help. He says: “It was probably not the right decision to jump in without knowing the situation.”
I live in Pittsburgh, and I just deliberately drank a cup of tap water without boiling it
After reading this article, I just went and drank a cup of water straight from the faucet without boiling it. I do not have a water filter.
I think the city’s call to boil water was not justified. The filter at the city’s water treatment plant would stop the giardia. Also, there was only one reading of low chlorine, and it was only slightly below the normal level. No giardia has been found in the water that has gone through the city’s filter. No cases of the illness have been reported.
I think the city cried wolf.
If there ever is a real need for a boil water alert in the future, this current incident will cause people to be skeptical and suspicious that there is a real need to boil water. The city goofed up.
With easy gun access, and 26,000 people, Squirrel Hill has had zero gun murders in the last decade
I live in Pennsylvania, where it’s very easy to get a gun.
My neighborhood of Squirrel Hill, in Pittsburgh, has 26,000 people.
In the last 10 years, there has been only one murder in my neighborhood. This gives it an annual murder rate of 0.4 per 100,000 people. If my neighborhood was its own country, it would have the sixth lowest murder rate of any country in the world.
That one murder consisted of a burglar bludgeoning a 90-year-old homeowner to death. He was convicted after just 14 months, and sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole. The burglar was from another neighborhood.
Lest anyone think it is a rich, exclusive neighborhood, the rent for my one bedroom apartment is only $725 a month, and there are quite a few vacancies in my building every summer, as many of the tenants are graduate students from all over the world, who only live here for a few years.
Anyway, I think it’s interesting that in my neighborhood of 26,000 people, where it’s very easy to get a gun, there have been exactly zero gun murders in the past decade.
Shoshana Roberts doesn’t want men to “harass” her, but on her own online biography she mentions her DD breasts
Shoshana Roberts is the woman who recently made a video about how she was “harassed” when she walked down the sidewalk. Much of this “harassment” consisted of people saying hi and being friendly.
You can see the video here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b1XGPvbWn0A
The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette also wrote this article about her video and the “harassment” that she received.
However, on her online biography, she mentions that her breast size is DD.
Shoshana Roberts has every right to list her breast size on her biography. But for someone who thinks that saying hi is a form of “harassment,” listing her breast size seems like an add choice.
If Shoshana Roberts is reading this, please answer this question: if you don’t want men “harassing” you, why do you list your breast size on your biography?
WTAE shows small business employees complaining about the high costs of Obamacare
Before Obamacare was passed, we critics said that its biggest parts were timed so as to not take place until after the 2012 election, and that these things would make health care more expensive. The Obama supporters laughed at us, called us racist, and said we didn’t care about people.
Now that the 2012 election is over, our predictions are coming true.
Pennsylvania voted for Obama in both elections. I live in Pennsylvania, and I still see Obama bumper stickers all over the place.
It’s too bad this news story from WTAE, Pittsburgh, doesn’t tell us which of these employees voted for Obama and which did not:
I disagree with the claim that heroin in Pittsburgh is a “major public health crisis.”
In the past week, at least 17 people in Allegheny and surrounding counties died from using heroin. Allegheny County medical examiner Karl Williams called it “a major public health crisis.”
I disagree with his claim that this is a “major public health crisis.” It’s not contagious. It’s not catchy. It’s not genetic. It is 100% completely, totally avoidable. So there is no “major public health crisis.”
This is a crisis, but it is a crisis of a very different kind. It is a crisis of bad decision making. It is a crisis of irresponsible behavior. It is a crisis of stupidity.
Pittsburgh employers who voted for Obama are now refusing to pay for Obamacare
I’ve lived in Pittsburgh for 42 years. Everywhere I go, I always see a huge number of pro-Obama bumper stickers. The overwhelmingly vast majority of people in this city are Democrats. They love Obama. They adore him. They voted for him in both elections.
Obamacare requires all employers with 50 or more full time employees to purchase health insurance for those employees, or pay a substantial fine. Obamacare defines full time employment as 30 or more hours per week.
Community College of Allegheny County has switched 200 of its adjunct professors and 200 of its other employees from full time to part time in order to avoid paying for health insurance for those 400 employees.
This decision was made by high level administrators and executives. I’m certain that the vast majority of these higher ups voted for Obama in both elections.
These high level employees have chosen to use a loophole to avoid paying for the very same insurance that they expect other employers to pay for. They voted for Obama. They supported Obamacare. But now they are exempting their own organization from paying for it. The stench of hypocrisy fills the air.
The Carnegie Museum has done the same thing. I’m certain that most of its higher ups voted for Obama. But now these very same higher ups have reduced the hours of 48 of their own employees in order to avoid paying for Obamacare. Again, this shows a tremendous amount of hypocrisy.
Since these two employers are unwilling to pay for insurance for their own employees, how can they support a law that forces other employers to pay for it?
You know a law is bad, when the very people who support the law exempt themselves from it.
Mango recall at Giant Eagle supermarkets in Pittsburgh
Yesterday I got a computerized phone call from Giant Eagle, telling me not to eat the mangoes that I’ve been buying since July, because they might be contaminated with Salmonella. The message said I could return them to the store for a full refund.
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For low-income minority students, cheap Catholic schools are better than expensive public schools
The Pittsburgh public schools have an enrollment of 26,649 students, and an annual budget of $529.8 million. That works out to $19,880 per student per year.
By comparison, the Catholic schools in Pittsburgh charge approximately $7,500 tuition per student per year. The low-income minority children who get scholarships to Catholic schools in Pittsburgh through the privately funded Extra Mile Education Foundation have much better attendance rates, graduation rates, and academic performance, than the students at the Pittsburgh public schools.
Snow removal in Pittsburgh
People in Pittsburgh have been complaining that the city hasn’t been removing the snow fast enough. I think those complaints are whiny and spoiled. This is the most snow that the city has ever had in one month ever. The people who remove the snow are only human – they can’t just cross their arms and blink their eyes and make the snow disappear.
