BONUSGATE BLOWS UP

Politickerpa.com, along with every other Pennsylvania political blog, is all over the Bonusgate indictments:

"House Majority Leader Bill DeWeese, hours after 12 former and current staffers and lawmakers in his caucus were indicted, released a statement saying he "feels searing disappointment over the actions of those I trusted." Mr. DeWeese went to say, "I share the outrage felt today by taxpayers across the state."

One comment in response:

"Either Mr. DeWeese is a seasoned liar who has covered his tracks very well, or an incompetent leader who knew nothing about anything that was going on right under his nose for years. Apparently, approximately 100 witnesses in the caucus knew what was going on but Mr DeWeese new nothing. Laughable and unbelievable."

BUNGLING BARDEN II

A few takes on Don Barden missing his debt payments and having to give up majority control of the Majestic Star casino:

• The Angry Drunk Bureaucrat, (angrydrunkbureaucrat.blogspot.com) writes it up under the headline: "From the Department of Who Didn't See This Coming?"

• Null Space (nullspace2.blogspot.com): "It just isn't in me to start deconstructing what the Barden financial capitulation could mean for the city and region. At this point, the gaming board really has an obligation to provide at the very least some quick road map for what the resolution to all of this could be to make sense of it all."

• The Burgh Blog (theburghblog.com): "I don't think Don Barden should be allowed to transfer the license. He was awarded it, he defaulted, the runner-up should get it.

"When Miss America is caught in a porn scandal, she doesn't get to choose who gets the crown after she's been stripped of it, does she?"

LABOR PAINS

Null Space also thinks there is going to be a strike at the Port Authority:

"All the talk I hear leads me to believe that the powers-that-be actually want there to be a strike. I will not be surprised if there is a plan in place early on to use substitute workers in the event of a strike in order to break the union, which is really the goal.

" ... If the strike is limited to just the Port Authority drivers then they may be in for tough going and the plan may work. If there is any sympathy labor actions in the region then I dunno how it will turn out. It may be the biggest test for organized labor in the region in decades. Think of it as a local version of the PATCO air traffic controllers strike in 1981, [during which President Reagan fired them all], something that had a major impact on labor-management relations for decades."

PICK YOUR POISON

The Onion.com reports on the latest survey that shows how women view the world:

"According to a report published Monday in The Journal Of Gender Studies, many American women are bucking centuries of traditional gender roles by placing stunted, emotionally unfulfilling relationships on hold in order to pursue mind-numbing careers devoid of any upward mobility.

"The study, which surveyed a cross-section of 477 female recent college graduates, found that young women were 23 percent more likely than any previous generation to seek dissatisfaction in the professional world rather than in empty romantic partnerships. Dr. Gillian Detweiller, a professor of women's studies at the University of Maryland and coauthor of the report, said that the data suggests a cultural sea change in how women choose to experience lifelong disappointment."

AMERICANUS IGNORAMUS

At TomDispatch.com, Rick Shenkman writes that "millions of Americans are embarrassingly ill-informed and they do not care that they are." Among the particulars, he cites a recent survey [a real one] that found 22 percent of Americans could name all five members of the cartoon Simpson family, while only one in 1,000 could name all five First Amendment freedoms (freedom of speech, religion, press, assembly and petition for redress of grievances).

He quotes Thomas Jefferson: "If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be."