> Compared to Europe Pennsylvania is stupid expensive.

Sorta, not really.

Europeans are often shocked at how cheap things are in the US.

The VAT (sorta like a sales tax) in France is 20%, compared to 6-7% here. Gas is around $6 a gallon.

On the other hand for all of our cheap "stuff", the US tends to make up for it in high housing/healthcare/education costs.

> This isn’t a race problem, it doesn’t have boundaries. Our culture is regressing and we brought it upon ourselves.

Obviously we want to tread carefully, any discussions of race are sensitive and often bring the online trolls and racists out of the woodwork. Certainly don't want this to become a game of finger-pointing and "blaming" certain groups. At the same time, at what point are we just burying our heads in the sand by insisting on colorblindness?

If this was some degradation of American culture generally you would expect the problem to be evenly distributed, but that's just not the case. There are absolutely massive racial disparities at play here.

Allegheny County Department of Human Service - Homicides in Allegheny County and the City of Pittsburgh, 2016 through 2021 > Black residents were much more likely to be victims of homicide than White residents. While Black residents comprise only 13% of the County population, they accounted for 77% of homicide victims in the County from 2016 through 2021. During those years, Black Allegheny County residents experienced an average homicide victimization rate that was 21 times greater than the rate for White residents. > >Similarly, in the City of Pittsburgh, 23% of the population is Black and 80% of all homicide victims were Black. The homicide victimization rate of Black Pittsburgh residents was 12 times greater than that of White residents.

When did you apply for the mail in ballot?

My application was already on-file from the primaries, and I received and returned my ballot weeks ago.

So unless you just recently applied, I'd say you should have started worrying a week or two ago.

Yeah. Just as of like a month ago.

Kings Family Restaurant in Plum closes to make way for new Sheetz

The Plum location just closed too, though that was because the plaza is being bulldozed to build a bigger Sheetz. There were hopes that might boost the business at the Monroeville location.

Don't think the chain has much of a future. New owners just drove it into the ground.

It's far from the worst major road in the area, but it's users like to complain the loudest.

I used to live in an area where it was a roughly equal distance between heading to 28 or the Parkway to commute into the city, and after experimenting with both I usually ended up with 28 being much faster. And every major construction project has really only made things better.

My theory is that since Route 28 generally leads out to the least developed quarter of the county, the folks that use it just aren't used to experiencing any significant traffic, so they complain more.

Covid vaccines are still free regardless of insurance status, though that may be ending as soon as January.

Biden administration is preparing for the end of free COVID-19 vaccines as funds run dry

Though I won't be surprised if the Covid boosters end up being classified as among the vaccines that private insurers must cover 100% once the government purchase program ends.

Nah, it's just the fact that PWSA is a lot more expensive than a lot of the suburban systems.

My monthly combined water/sewage bill is about $50 in Monroeville.

But we also don't have century old lead pipes all over the place that need to be replaced so there's that.

> For reference, we bill bi-monthly and my usage is normally 5 or 6 thousand over two months (two adults and two small children). So you are using 2x the water I am.

Looks like they're usage is 3000gal for a month, which is basically exactly the same as yours.

The bill is a little confusing because there are two lines that say 3000gal. At first I thought it was a tiered pricing thing where they paid a certain rate for the first 3000gal and then another rate for the second.

However looking at the rates on the PWSA website it looks like the x $13.10 line is the water charge and the x $6.99 line is the sewer charge.

I'm not a PWSA customer, I live outside of the city, but PWSA bills are a recurring topic here in /r/pittsburgh and in local media.

This sounds about right, unfortunately. Appears to match the rates on the PWSA website.

According to this PublicSource article from last year the average PWSA bill is over $100 per month, and over time it's only expected to get worse.

Make sure you're registered to vote at your new address:

https://www.vote.pa.gov/Register-to-Vote/Pages/Check-Your-Voter-Registration-Status.aspx

The voter registration deadline is Monday 10/24.

The Kansas vote was during a primary election, but they hold theirs later than we do so it was in August.

Turnout was high despite it being a primary because of how hot-button of an issue it was, it's not exactly the sort of thing that's going to fly under the radar.

That's why I was suggesting that if Republicans were smart/sneaky they would back off from the abortion amendment and pass the others to be on off-year primary ballot.

> And totally understandable on needing a background check, but I've not heard of Sandusky, you mean the town? I'm new to the area (got here 3 months back) so I don't know much about any history

It was referring to a particularly nasty incident, so I kept my comment kind of vague assuming most people would know the reference.

The law was in response to the Penn State University child sex abuse scandal about a decade ago. Jerry Sandusky was an assistant coach for the football program at Penn State and was caught molesting children, and the botched response by the university to the discovery was a huge thing.

Changes to the state constitution must be approved by the legislature in two sessions of congress, so they would have to pass the proposed ones a second time next year in order for them to appear before voters for approval.

We'll see but I wouldn't be surprised if Republicans got cold feet on advancing the abortion amendment again, after watching voters in Kansas soundly reject a similar amendment just a few months ago.

If a deep red state like Kansas can't pull it off, they have to know their chances are bad in a state like PA.

Wouldn't be surprised if they tried to pass all of the other proposed amendments though, in the hopes that not putting abortion on the ballot lulls voters to stay home.

Maybe volunteer for a local Trunk or Treat Event?

I honestly only have passing familiarity with these things, I assume it's more for places where you might not want kids going door to door?

Might be a bit late in the game to get involved for this year though. Especially since this sort of volunteering might be regulated under the state's background check process to volunteer with kids. That law was part of the fallout from the Sandusky thing.

A lot of rural and small town departments don't have the staffing to have someone sitting at the station 24/7 to babysit the holding cells. They're going to either process and release an arrestee as quickly as possible, or hand them off to the county jail.

https://hbg100.com/2021/03/20/led-lights-from-a-marijuana-greenhouse-are-turning-the-sky-pink-in-carlisle-pennsylvania/comment-page-1/