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Some interesting one-upmanship is going on in the always entertaining but increasingly risky game of chicken being played in Lawrence over Fire Department staffing. Over the weekend, Mayor Willie Lantigua finally agreed to tear himself away from his two-week, triumphal, rock-star tour of the Dominican Republic and return to the “great city of Lawrence.” And upon his return, he said a cadre of volunteers was going to be tracking firefighters with video cameras. The idea was to see if they were, you know, letting down a bit at fires or other calls to make things look even worse than they are. After all, the worse it looks, the more likely it is that the state or the feds will be persuaded to cough up some more money so the union won’t have to make any contract concessions to bring back some of the guys that were laid off.
This, fire officials said, was the ultimate insult. But the talking points memo in response got a bit garbled. According to acting fire Chief Brian Murphy, the firefighters always give 100 percent. Not so, said union secretary Graeme Millar. “The firefighters here in the city, we give 150 percent every single day, no questions asked,” he said.
Which prompts a question: How do you give more than 100 percent?
I’ll go them one better. I give 200 percent every day, no questions asked. How do I do it? I don’t know. But it sounds good.

Looks like we’re raising up the next generation right – teaching them to buy into the Democratic gospel that jobs are created by the government. So, obviously, the way to get a job is not to search the want ads and apply for openings, but to demand that government supply the money for various agencies to pay your salary.

About 700 teens took time out from their strenuous April vacation to march on Beacon Hill Wednesday afternoon, demanding that state and federal legislators restore government spending that pays for summer jobs.
I suppose, since the state is in a financial hole and the federal debt will easily last past their lifetimes, they figure it doesn’t matter if the hole gets a little deeper.

But I wonder if anybody has even asked, or thought about whether the constant increases in the minimum wage have something to do with the lack of entry-level and summer jobs.

Gotta thank VP Joe Biden for injecting some of his peerless comic idiocy into what was otherwise a very depressing day for the future generations of whatever half-baked America he and President Barack Obama will be leaving. By now, virtually everybody in the world with a TV or computer has seen Biden introduce Obama at the signing ceremony for the government takeover of health care.
It was supposed to be the triumphant moment of Obama’s administration, the moment the eyes of the world would behold nothing but the greatness of The Chosen One’s power to remake America.
And surely all of his acolytes will try to make sure we remember it as only that. But we won’t be able to help remembering Joe telling Obama, “This is a big (expletive) deal.”
Way to go, Joe. In the grand tradition of transformative presidents, we had The New Deal. And now we have the Big (Expletive) Deal.

More tales from the abuse of plain language at the Statehouse: Chapter 9,621.
The bottom line is that the infamous Hack Holidays – Evacuation Day (which happens to fall on St. Patrick’s Day, but so named to give it some alleged historical flavor) and Bunker Hill Day on June 17 will live for at least another year. Prior to evacuating Boston for this week’s holiday, the Democratic leadership consigned a bill eliminating the two holidays, which apply only to Suffolk County to “study.”
Study? There will be no study. There is no need for study. But that’s what they call it when they want to kill a bill. It sounds so academic. It sounds like they’re rolling up their sleeves and working on it. Which is, of course, a colossal falsehood.
But, at this point, nobody even winks. They’ve called it that so many times, for so many years, that it’s just part of the normal course of business.
Why do they keep doing things like this? Easy. Instead of punishing them for it, we reward them – we keep re-electing them.
Why should they stop?

As everybody who stayed awake long enough to watch it has said, the president’s summit on health care on Thursday was boring and predictable. Still, there were a few classic moments.
One was when Sen. John McCain complained that President Obama had not, until the summit, fulfilled a campaign promise that the debate over health care would be transparent – so transparent that it would be broadcast on TV. Obama’s response was to “remind” McCain that the campaign was over. Well, yeah, that is obvious to everybody, including McCain. But it sounds like the president was also saying that any promises he made during the campaign were irrelevant. Good thing to keep in mind during the next campaign.
And then there was Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, apparently running for the Yogi Berra Reality Award, who fumed at one moment that, “nobody is talking about reconciliation,” the maneuver to sidestep the filibuster in the Senate – known as the “nuclear option” – and pass Obamacare with a simple majority. This, after Reid has talked about it himself, telling Republicans to quit complaining about it. After Sen. Dick Durbin has launched an online petition calling for dumping the filibuster. And after 100 congressmen and 20 senators have called for it. Reid is making as much sense as Yogi when he (allegedly) famously said, “Nobody goes there any more. It’s too crowded.”