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What dead horse is getting throttled this week?
Nobody told your Lady Yokels that dead horse hunting season was now open in Frederick! Surprisingly, this week’s dead horse doesn’t symbolize Jerry and Jessica lining their pockets with all those gold doubloons. What horse’s bones are Billy and Kirby beating this time? Take a gander:
What does Kirby have to say? Let’s summon him and find out:
Now we are forced to summon the ghost of Mark Twain:
We covered Kirby’s school construction workshop and Jan’s presentation concerning the acquisition of the nursing homes from Aurora. Why weren’t Kirby and Billy concerned about building schools when it was a developer free for all during the last BOCC? For, in a logical world, that would have been the perfect time to make sure our infrastructure and schools were up to snuff. Why, also, did they vote against funding schools above MOE? It clearly could not have been a secret that the people who were going to occupy these adobes would have offspring that they would like to be properly educated. Or was it? But of course this is all Jan’s fault! Every last bit of it!
Bruce Lee once said showing off is the fool’s idea of glory. Your September 6 county council run down.
It’s that time of the month!
As reliable and as looked forward to as our monthly menstrual cycles, Kirby publishes some drivel on the noodlely appendage. This month’s submission was so long that the Editor of said website had to publish this disclaimer:
Editor’s Note: County Councilman Delauter (sic) piece is quite lengthy, which was brought on by the detailed facts he presents. It is well worth the read.
Well that’s makes it tons more appealing!! It is really hard to decipher, we even think some paragraphs may be out of order, but we will give it the old college try!
As best as we can make out, here’s his main points:
- David Gray-bad!
- Jan Gardner-even worse!
- Nursing home-money pit!
- Jan targeting businesses!
- Whoa! That’s a lot of numbers!
That’s the best we can do with this one. You can try it for yourself, but you may want to fortify yourself with some liquid courage first. We need to go lie down now.
Post Labor Day agenda drinking game
Your Yokel Ladies are famous y’all!
If you haven’t seen it yet, go out and pick yourself up a copy of September’s Frederick Magazine. Inside you will find an article entitled “Politics in the Blogosphere” by the very talented Katherine Heerbrandt. Upon those glossy pages you’ll get a good scoop on your favorite blog, Frederick County Fact Check (http://www.frederickcountyfactcheck.org), and some other guys. It’s only $3.95, and you’ll be supporting your local print media. (While you are at it pick up the Washingtonian as well. There’s a very good article about Frederick politics. Your Lady Yokels were also contacted, however, due to busy summer schedules we were not able to make time to talk with the reporter).
While we are sure many of our readers will thoroughly enjoy the Frederick Magazine article, we were contacted via email with some unsolicited advice from one of the other bloggers who was mentioned very briefly in the story. He feels that we are never going to be taken seriously as journalists if we don’t reveal our identities. Curious that it is impossible to debate ideas without the opportunity to engage in ad hominem attacks, isn’t it? And now, we must reiterate that anyone mistaking us for journalists absolutely must read a real newspaper, whether you like it or not. We are not attempting to provide journalism. This is infotainment, people. As to why we choose to feature Blaine, again…infotainment. He is bursting with infotainment potential. For example, he appears to think Kirby Delauter will be our next County Executive (which just is not nice to Kirby, being honest). He also seems to be looking at a run in D5, so brace yourself for the infinite infotainment. SorryNotSorry.
By: Woebegone Putupon of the Shantytown
But we were told Frederick County was the most business unfriendly entity on the face of the EARTH!
We’ve been told by Blaine, Kirby and Billy that Frederick County is CLOSED for business. We’ve been told that our county is the most business unfriendly entity on the face of our entire planet. We’ve been told that our County Executive is a big vindictive meanie that targets businesses who flagrantly rip up our county’s regulations and set them on fire. So how can this story in the FNP be true? You can read it for yourselves, but we’ve pulled out the nice little chart for you:
Someone is wrong. Who could it be?
Fun with the FNP comment section!
If you had a chance ,on this beautiful late summer day, to take a peek-a-boo at the FNP you would have seen that Shade Trees and Evergreens is filing for Chapter 7 bankruptcy. Which essentially means that all their bridal customers will never see their money again. What’s really weird is that the bride interviewed in the story isn’t blaming Jan:
Boyenton’s complaint alleges that Shade Trees & Evergreens deposited a $2,250 payment from her, and it was not returned after the wedding was canceled.
She found out six days before her May 13 wedding that the venue could not host it, she said.
“I’m honestly still baffled that the owners have so little consideration for the hundred brides they took money from,” she said. “Shade Trees knew this was coming one day.”
With the help of her caterer, Boyenton found another venue that was available to host her wedding at the same time and day. It matched Shade Tree & Evergreens’ price, but because she has not received any money back from the original venue, she said it was like she paid twice.
“Honesty, I really just want my money back. Or at least an apology from them,” she said.
Huh, so not everyone believes that when a business ignores all zoning and permitting ordinances it’s all Jan’s fault. Really strange.
What is most informative about today’s story does not lie within the article but within the comment section. Let’s take a tour and see if we can help our neighbors out with some of their questions.
Well FrederickFan we can answer your question:
Shocking isn’t it? And ding ding ding public-redux you are correct! Instead of stepping back and looking at all of the facts, he’s just going to double down! Now, we have a mystery on our hands:
LOL! Does Kirby use the moniker thevoiceoffrederick? Quick poll time:
We are very sorry that these wedding customers will never see their money. But thankful that most thinking people see who is at fault. Something that Kirby has a very hard time doing.
We need to increase the budget of the State’s AV Department STAT!
Yesterday we wrote about Governor Hogan’s Executive Order that now dictates the school year for all Maryland counties. What you may not have seen, and may be very mad at us for bringing into your lives, is Comptroller Peter Franchot and Ocean City Mayor Richard Meehan’s nice little piece of propaganda that takes the form of a You Tube Video. In the spirit of Tosh.O we are going to give you a breakdown of everything that is wrong with this three minutes of our lives that is now gone forever.
First we begin with our two stars hanging out on the boardwalk and guess what? They can’t find ANYBODY that disagrees with their notion that schools should start after Labor Day. It’s just common sense y’all! Everyone loves it! Teachers, because they can work their second jobs longer! (That’s a thing that was said.) And Parents! And Kids!
Here they are presumably on the hunt for those “couple of people who are holding this idea up”, but they are no where to be found. Imagine that! People who are at the beach, probably having a pretty good time, cannot come up with any reasons as to why schools shouldn’t go back until after Labor Day. Hopefully this isn’t the same data model they used to ensure us that this will bring millions upon millions of dollars into the State coffers.
Now this part is really LOL! Our two stars are strolling the boardwalk yelling, “Are you from Maryland?” We guess they actually wanted to talk to people that would be affected by their proposal. Who do they settle on? German tourists. That’s right, Europeans who live thousands of miles away. The nice lady in the middle tells them that school in Germany starts in September to which our fine gentlemen are appropriately horrified. The Mayor even yells, “They start after Labor Day and they don’t even have Labor Day!” Oh the misplaced outrage!
Well, we found this entry on Wikipedia about the German school year:
The school year starts after the summer break (different from state to state, usually end/mid of August) and is divided into two terms. There are typically 12 weeks of holidays in addition to public holidays. Exact dates differ between states, but there are generally six weeks of summer and two weeks of Christmas holiday. The other holiday periods occur in spring (during the period around Easter Sunday) and autumn (during the former harvest, where farmers used to need their children for field work). Schools can also schedule two or three special days off per term.
Took two seconds to find that fellas! And their summer is only 6 weeks long! Even with our current schedule we manage 8-9 weeks off. Now let’s wrap this thing up! Our dynamic duo has a snazzy new slogan for us! Ready! Set! Go!
AFTER LABOR DAY!
Really? That’s the best you could come up with? And what’s that fur in the bottom of the photo? This video truly goes down as one of the egregious pieces of propaganda we have seen this side of the 21st century.
Let’s shrink that government! Wait, let me first issue this sweeping State mandate!
We know y’all heard by now about Governor Hogan’s Executive Order mandating that schools will now start after Labor Day and must be done by June 15th. Curiously there was nothing within this Executive Order that would help school systems achieve this, like perhaps, eliminating some of the testing requirements or lowering the number of mandatory school days. Therefore, something is going to have to go. And it looks as though that something will be Spring Break. Baltimore County school superintendent had this to say:
Baltimore County schools Superintendent Dallas Dance said his school system would have to reduce spring break to Good Friday and the Monday after Easter to fit the required 180 days into the calendar between Labor Day and June 15.
We’ve seen people on Twitter comment how this is a summer tax for working families who now will have to find more camps and child care. Not to mention the summer slide that so many kids experience. What we find all so interesting is that this decision was not done through the legislature, had no public comment opportunities and seems to be antithetical to the way a “less government is better” politician would behave.
Don’t get us wrong though, we Yokel moms do not want to lose our summer break. But we also do not want to lose our Spring and Winter ones either. One of the Yokel younguns even said today, ” I can’t make it through the year without my breaks.” We also remembered how Frederick almost burned down the Board of Ed when they took Fair Day off the calendar. The hard truth is, however, if schools are required to come up with 180 days on a longer summer schedule something is gonna get chopped!
Lots of people support this because they didn’t go to school until after Labor Day when they were kids. Well, school has changed since the good old days and we happen to think it is really bad policy to make decisions based on nostalgia. We are also super skeptical that people are going to use that time to stuff their faces with Boardwalk Fries. When this same exact subject came up in legislative hearings, school board members testified against it. Every community should have the freedom to create their school calendar around their needs and wants. If Governor Hogan really wanted to help local school boards out he could: a) Better fund the schools b) Ease up on State testing requirements and c) study the research about how really long breaks hurt lower income kids. Every district needs to design their calendar based on the needs and wants of their community. We’ll leave you with these words from State Senator Mike Miller:
Maryland Senate President Thomas V. Mike Miller Jr. (D-Calvert) criticized Hogan for not collaborating with the General Assembly, calling the governor’s action “extraordinary and legally questionable,” and saying he should have proposed the change as legislation.“It would have required hard work on the part of the Governor, and mostly likely compromise working with education experts and local officials around the state to reach agreement on how the goal could best be accomplished without harming students’ educational attainment,” Miller said.
“Making a press show about this issue over a year in advance while holding hands with the state tax collector appears like political gamesmanship.”
Can you imagine if Jan did something like this? Curious to see how Billy and Kirby are going to react when it’s their buddy making sweeping mandates.
frederick local yokel 