Still crazy after all these years

… because he put the player's names on the jerseys? Update on bottom:  Some former Penn State football players are going overboard to show their displeasure with the football coach who succeeded Joe Paterno. The most recent one strikes me as funny … and as somewhat stupid.  Former tight end Troy Drayton, whom I would not place in the top echelon of PSU players, said this about why he would not watch Penn State football games this year. "I don't care about all the other stuff," Drayton told the Harrisburg Patriot-News (pennlive.com). "It's the names on the back of the jersey. I have a hard time with it, I really do. I follow them from afar, but I can't fathom watching a game. Every coach has a right to change what they want and that's their prerogative. To me, I know what it stood for. It's tough as a hardcore Penn State traditionalist to swallow that." <http://www.pennlive.com/pennstatefootball/index.ssf/2013/08/penn_state_g...

            "Stay the hell out of Syria." Dear President Obama, Please remember where you achieved your success in politics and in policy. You justifiably eviscerated George W. Bush and his cohorts about their ill-fated debacle in Iraq, including hammering your Democratic Party rivals, Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden. That is why you won the Democratic Party nomination for president. Bush did exactly what you are considering doing in Syria, although the cases are really not analogous in many ways.  Here is the bottom line: Syria has done nothing to the U.S. Yes, Pres. Assad did use chemical weapons against his own people, which should lead him to a trial at the Hague. Assad is an evil person, just like Saddam Hussein was. That does not mean that we have to bomb or invade his country. If Saddam had weapons of mass destruction or nuclear weapons that would have caused the "mushroom cloud" that Condi Rice used to fantasize about, then the U.S. w...

Another scandal that Corbett ignored … in addition to Sandusky Yesterday, the feds -- not the state -- indicted the founder of Pa. Cyber Schools, Nicholas Trombetta, for fraud and tax evasion. What Trombetta did was buy a condo and some houses in Florida for his girlfriend and mother.  According to the AP report, he "tucked most of the money in a shell company for his retirement." How does that involve Corbett? Simple: Corbett hates public education, particularly the teachers who joined unions to earn a decent wage, and the cyber school gave him a place to pour money into instead of these knowledge-infested public schools. He also received campaign donations from Trombetta. This case goes back to when Corbett was attorney general prior to 2011. According to a 2007 story by the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, a grand jury sought by then attorney general Corbett investigated Trombetta's actions. <http://www.post-gazette.com/stories/news/education/cyber-schoo...

Mark Critz is going to run for Pa. Lieutenant Governor, not the seat in the 12th District that he lost to Tea Bagger Keith Rothfus.  This is wonderful. We may now have a Democrat run for the 12th District Congressional seat next year (maybe a woman). Here is what one of the other LG candidates said about Critz:   Brad Koplinski blasted Critz in a press release, comparing him to Gov. Tom Corbett: “We welcome Mark Critz to the race, his views and ideas will create the sort of contrast we Democrats need.” “Democrats will have the choice to choose between a true unwavering progressive and a candidate who has received a 0% from Planned Parenthood, a 0% from the Human Rights Campaign, an 8% from the Sierra Club, had the 4th worst lifetime record among Democrats according to the League of Conservation Voters, was among Pat Robertson’s Christian Coalition’s top 10 highest rated Democrats and received an A grade from the NRA. The overwhelming response Brad has...

                                          another one of Spanier's failures Penn State president Rodney Erickson deserves credit for something positive: The ranking for the best party school in the U.S. has Penn State dropping to ninth after rising to number one and two under previous president Graham Spanier.  This is really a black mark for any of these schools that appear on this list. In fact, instead of the PSU trustees arguing about whether or not JoePa's statue should be placed somewhere on campus or arguing about any other Sandusky-related issue, Penn State should address this one. It was a problem when I was there a few decades ago, and from all I hear, it is much worse now than it ever was in the Seventies or Sixties.  What happened the night of the firing of Joe Paterno is an example of that. While it may have been heartfelt anger felt by most of th...

                              and Newt admits the folly of his ways Democracy originates in a variety of ways, but one component is consistent: Democracy originates with the people, at the grass roots, often resulting in a revolution like that of our forefathers in the American Revolution. Tired of the autocratic directives of King George, the colonists revolted, and we can thank them for their gift to us. Democracy cannot be imposed, as the U.S. tried to do in Iraq. That "democracy" did not come from the grass roots, despite the horrendous autocracy and brutality of Saddam Hussein.  Bush and Co attempted to overthrow Saddam, and then impose a Jeffersonian Democracy in a land that cannot follow such a libertarian concept. As a result, the country will eventually fall into another civil war that will allow one of the groups: Shiites, Sunni, and Kurds, to emerge as the autocracy. The ...